Macademia and White Chocolate Brownies

Lately, I've been telling people that they should bake brownies for their beloved... and suddenly, I realised that I haven't baked brownies in ages. I'm visiting my dad tomorrow - I haven't seen him in a long time and I'm looking forward to a big family get-together! Of course, dessert is my part! Brownies... brownies are the right choice for this.

This recipe is from one of my dearest cookbooks. I got it as a present about a year ago and it's about time I start trying out more recipes from it! So here we go... Get ready for loads of chocolate, butter, sugar and nuts... If you want to eat healthy, you should probably better try Ottolenghi's fabulous salads... but we're not talking about salad now, we're talking brownies!

Recipe
(from Ottolenghi - The Cookbook)

200g macademia nuts
200g butter
280g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
300g dark chocolate (I used 70%)
2 eggs
230g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract, or vanilla sugar
2 tsp instant coffee
200g white chocolate, broken into pieces (I used 100g only)

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Pour the nuts onto a baking tray and roast them in the oven for about 5 minutes. Then, remove them from the oven. Line a 22cm square tin (I used my usual brownie tin) with parchment paper.

Put butter and dark chocolate (broken into pieces) in a saucepan and melt slowly over low heat. As soon as it all has melted, remove from the stove. Let cool slightly. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar and vanilla extract. Add instant coffee. When this has just combined, fold in the melted chocolate and then sift in the flour. Fold in white chocolate and half of the nuts.

Pour your mixture into the prepared tin and top with the remaining nuts. Bake for about 25 minutes. Allow to cool completely, then remove from the tin and cut into pieces. The brownies keep for about 5 days, if stored in an airtight container.