Pimped Up Brownies. A Rebel Fix.


When the skies are grey and there’s no chance of the laundry drying on the line anytime soon, there’s only one thing to do. Bake. With large amounts of chocolate and butter.

 
 
With my Lurpak brownie tin and blocks of butter from yesterday’s successful mission ready to go, the logical thing to bake was brownies. I’m all about the packet mix these days and Donna Hay heeded my call with her chic blue box of Caramel Fudge Chocolate Brownie Mix. All you need in addition to the mix are 2 eggs and 125g of melted butter. Coles online tells me that it currently retails for $8.67 (precisely) per box.
 
 
When most of the work of baking is done for you, it’s hard not to resist the temptation to engage in a spot of brownie bedazzling. The things I chose to bedazzle with were sea salt and some squares of dark chocolate. The sea salt because of my salted caramel obsession and the extra chocolate? Well you can never have too much chocolate in a brownie and I was hoping to achieve that rivers of melted chocolate effect with each bite of brownie.
 
A few words about preparing your brownie tin. If you’re short on time, a quick way to line a greased tin with baking paper is to wet a scrunched up piece of baking paper and ease it into the prepared tin. No finicky cutting required. The moistened paper readily fits into the contours of the tin. That was one of the many great shortcuts I’ve gleaned from watching Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals.
 
 
 
The caramel component of the brownies comes as a ready made slab of caramel which you then chop and add to the mixture of eggs, melted butter and the supplied brownie mix.
 
 
 
The Donna Hay mix produces a pretty stiff and fudge like batter. It didn’t take long at all to achieve this consistency with hand mixing.
 

After pouring the batter into the prepared tray, I pimped up the top surface like chocolate and sea salt were going out of fashion. And yes, the Lurpak tin was the perfect size for the amount of brownie batter I had.

 

I baked my brownies for 55 minutes at 160C in a fan forced oven. Whilst the brownies turned out to be chewy and moist, my excessive brownie pimping proved to be fortuitous because the extra chocolate added a bit more depth to the chocolate flavour which seemed a bit subdued in comparison to other brownie mixes and recipes I’ve used. The caramel pieces baked to a chewy, gooey stickiness and the addition of some sea salt gave the caramel a recommended for mature audiences kind of finish.

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I’ve been watching clips of Rebel Wilson hosting this year’s MTV Movie Awards and wondering whether she landed the show an MA rating too. Rebel took the hosting gig to places it’s never been before and she did it with flair and talent. Aussie cliches, self deprecating quips and double entendres came thick and fast as she sang and danced her way through the show. She owned each element of her performance and that’s what made it such great viewing. Rebel was as much fun hosting the show as she is in her movie roles. Which doesn’t happen as often as you’d hope in Hollywood.

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I got another dose of Rebel with ‘Pitch Perfect’ on DVD. It felt like Glee’s slightly edgy older cousin whose off at uni. The singing and dancing had me tapping my feet and singing out loud. And you’ve got to be happy with that on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.


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