A rustic take on chocolate brownies

How much do you love chocolate?

(Don't shout! Don't shout! Come on...it was a rhetoric question!)

I've never been a champion at munching chocolate by chunks. Well, I'd like to nibble on some flavoured chocolate or have chocolate omelette for breakfast from time to time, but a cheesecake/apple cake/another good cake will always stand above chocolate cakes in my top 10.

Regular chocolate cakes don't really attract me that much, BUT I'm momentarily sold when I see something different. It has to be different different. It has to confuse my taste buds before I've even read through the recipe. This cake, my darlings, qualified enough to spend time at the back door of my mind for a long time.

It's a brownie recipe that uses barley flour as the only flour. I wouldn't have believed it could work out so well without all the fancy gluten. But it did. It's a cake that bloody could. Barley flour's got my soul now!

Chocolate brownies with barley flour
(Estonian magazine Oma maitse )

200 g butter
150 g dark chocolate
2 dl coarsely chopped walnuts
1 dl dried cranberries or cherries
3 eggs
2 dl sugar
2 dl barley flour

1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add chocolate chunks. Stir over low heat until incorporated well. Remove from heat.
2. Beat the eggs with sugar with an electric mixer until stiff.
3. Add the chocolate mixture, whisking, then add the flour and chopped walnuts and berries (if using cherries, cut them into two). Mix carefully.
4. Bake at once in a greased baking pan at 180 for 20-30 minutes (I used a 24 cm pan).
5. Let cool before serving.

The cake is, essentially, a brownie full of deep chocolate taste, but isn't as smooth as usually, but a bit grainy inside. Barley flour gives it a more crumbly texture and an intense, a bit rustic flavour that suits so well with walnuts. Dried cherries or cranberries add sweetness, but aren't very recognizable on the whole.

I found a most suitable way for completing the taste of the cake by adding some neat slightly flavoured cream.



Cinnamon-vanilla cream topping

1 dl heavy cream
100 g cream cheese
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp sugar
vanilla
pinch of salt

1. Combine cream cheese, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt in a bowl, beat with an electric mixer until fluffy.
2. Add heavy cream and beat some more until you reach your desired consistency.

The cream completes the strong flavour of the cake perfectly and creates a fluffy contrast with the dense chocolate brownie. The flavour itself is kind of a shadow of a flavour, but this is the aim here - to let all the rustic delight stand out.

Right now I'd say I love chocolate pretty much!:)