* Chocolate Zucchini Brownies

I made these Chocolate Zucchini Brownies three times before I felt they were good enough to share... with real touchable people as well as all of you!

Usually, it seems to take me longer to photograph and blog a recipe, than it does to actually make it - not this time, however... I made these brownies three times before I finally got them right!

The first time I made them, I squeezed all of the water out of the zucchini and they were a tad cake-like in consistency. Nice, but not dense and chewy enough to be called a brownie.

The second time I made them in a 20cm x 20cm square cake tin and only used 50g/2oz of chocolate chips, but I didn't squeeze the water out of the zucchini.... they were really good and completely shareable but I forgot to take photographs.... because we ate them a tad quickly.

Just a tad.

The third time I used a 27cm x 17cm baking pan, didn't squeeze the water out of the zucchini and added 100g/4oz of chocolate chips.... and remembered to photograph them before we ate them... barely. They were awesome - dense, chewy, chocolatey, nommy bars of heaven.

The best compliment in the world was when my friend Lynne's daughter - Deryn - ate five of them before we could get the lid back on the tin they'd been served in. I sat there in awe and delight. Finally, someone with an even bigger capacity for sweet things, than I.

But only just.

* Traditional Brownie {Hummingbird Bakery}

Finally - a traditional brownie recipe that I didn't muller first time around...

Every cook, everywhere, no matter their expertise (I'm not claiming any here, just go with the flow till I'm done )... has something that they either can't cook or aren't very good at instinctively.

For me, it used to be pastry - however... I've mentioned in other posts that I am now a pastry goddess (of at least two types of pastry... two types)... Shut up. I can hear your "Yeah. Right." sarcasm from here. I can do my own. Thankyou. Sarcasm AND pastry. In. Your. Face...

Now that I have conquered one battle, won one war (stay with me), it would seem that I have had another one on my hands. Brownies. I'm crap at 'em.

NOT ANY MORE. Bolded and underlined baby.

Okay. I've had one iddy biddy true success, but you can't take that away from me. Look at 'em. They are perfectly papery on the top and squidgily soft in the middle and it's like you've died and gone to heaven when you stuff three of them in your face all at once.

Not that I did that. Okay... I might have done that. It all happened so fast I'm not quite sure what happened - but one minute there were 12 brownies and the next... weeellllll... there were less than 10... and I was chewing on something chocolatey. Maybe.

According to my Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook - traditional brownies must be chewy, chocolatey and dense - and these were all three. I think maybe the fact that I used my conventional oven to cook them, rather than my fan oven - meant that they didn't dry out and lose that essential squidgy factor. So I'll be doing that again.

And soon.

* Mocha Brownies

I've not cooked these luscious brownies in FOREVER... simply because if I made them whilst Neil was at work - I'd eat the lot before he came home. He'd walk in the door and say "Ooooh, something baking?" and I'd have to lie and say "Nooooooo! I bought some food scented candles. Good aren't they?" Whilst surreptitiously swiping my hands across the work surfaces, checking for stray brownie crumbs... and licking the palms of my hands if I found some.

I'm really not very good at telling myself "No". It's like I have a panic button that says if I don't eat it all now, I may never eat it again. So there's some stuff that I have stopped cooking over the years - in case I end up actually living the *Thin Mint* scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life... "Eeessa waffer theen!"

KABOOM!

That said... I just had to. Just to see if I'd gained any control over my urge to consume these en mass. 

They've been sitting in their cake tin for the past couple of hours. 

There's drool EVERYWHERE!!!