What would my mother have said?

My late parents felt very strongly about alcohol, and were lifelong teetotallers. When I was at school, I won a Guinness Award for Mathematics. Back in the 1960's and 70's they dished them out to schoolchildren who showed apparent potential. The breweries had always encouraged mathematicians, ever since William Gossett [who wrote maths papers under the pseudonym 'Student'] developed their statistics department 100 years ago. It was the one certificate which never got displayed in a frame!

Someone in our church has won a year's supply of the stuff and his wife was lamenting the fact that the house was filling up with cans faster than anyone could drink them. We suggested all sorts of constructive ways of dealing with them [they make good slug traps!] then Steph said she had a good Brownies recipe. So this morning I made a batch of the aforementioned. I understand that cooking destroys the alcoholic content - if not, we are going to have a very merry Housegroup tonight]

They have come out remarkably well. They are incredibly rich and chocolatey - although I confess I couldn't detect any Guinness flavour in the ones Bob and I just sampled. The recipe worked ok - I used my Kenwood Chef to beat the batter, which was a lot runnier than I had expected. And the Guinness does foam alarmingly when you pour it in. But when sliced into 3cm cubes, I got about 4 dozen brownies. My 'cup' measure is a stainless steel one from IKEA.

Here is the recipe;

Guinness chocolate fudge brownies

8 oz chocolate, broken into pieces [Dairy Milk on offer in Co-op!]
4 oz white chocolate, broken into pieces [I used Milky Bar buttons]
4 oz butter
4 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 12 oz. bottle of Guinness
icing sugar for dusting (optional)
Preheat oven to 180'C. Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with foil, leaving overhang to lift brownies up once baked and cooled.
In a medium saucepan, melt the chocolates and the butter over very low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat chocolate mixture into egg mixture. Whisk the flour, salt, and cocoa together. Beat into the chocolate mixture. Beat in the Guinness.
Pour mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester or skewer inserted in the centre of brownie comes out almost clean. Remove from the oven to cooling rack and let cool. Lift out of pan and cut into small squares (very moist and deep chocolate flavour), dust with icing sugar.

Thanks for the recipe, Steph.

One further thing - because I am incredibly curious, I dismantled the can to get out the 'widget'. It is a wonderful little plastic ball, and I could do with some more of these for Holiday Bible Club Crafts. I have already appealed at Church for plastic bottle tops, and wine corks - not sure I dare ask for widgets from beer cans!