Mrs Green’s chocolate crunch (chocolate concrete) recipe
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Mrs Green’s chocolate crunch
It seems most of my recycling has been around food recently.
What with recycling breakfast, Sunday pudding, reheating chips and even porrage, excuses for wasting food are becoming fewer and fewer.
It was the recycling of Sunday pudding that sent tweets and emails my way with requests for my chocolate crunch recipe. I believe it was Maisie who first sent me a link to the original recipe…
Chocolate crunch (or chocolate concrete as some people know it by) was the staple food of my office life. It was a little trip down memory lane to one of the more edible school dinner puddings that kept me sane amongst the silly telephone calls I had to deal with during the day.
My best friend at work and I would sneak down to the staff restaurant just before it closed and load up plates with chocolate crunch and pink custard, the tiptoe back to our desks to bask in chocolate heaven. That sugary fix kept us going between having to say “How may I help you?” for the umpteenth time that day.
It seems its charm continues down the generations. Chocolate crunch was one of the first things Little Miss Green made by herself and we’ve since handed out this recipe for three of her school friends.
It couldn’t be simpler but you can dress it up to look like you’ve spent hours in the kitchen. And I’ve even designed it so washing up is a breeze:
Chocolate crunch recipe
Ingredients
3 1/2 oz butter
3 oz sugar (experiment with this: using caster one day and soft brown light another, for example)
1/2 oz cocoa powder
5 oz self raising flour (I usually mix plain flour with 2 tsp baking powder; I find it works better this way)
1 beaten egg
Method
Here’s my ‘law of least effort washing up’ method.
Gently melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat
Meanwhile weigh the rest of the ingredients
When the butter has just melted, remove from the heat
Check the butter is not too hot then sift the sugar, cocoa powder and flour straight into the saucepan
Add the beaten egg and mix everything around until it’s well combined
This recipe doesn’t need over mixing or the texture will change
Dump the mix into a very lightly greased brownie tin and bake
Either go for 180 for 25 minutes for a hard, dry ‘concrete’ or bake at 160 for about 15 minutes for something resembling more of a brownies texture (we call this version chocolate goo).
I love this recipe because:
- It’s so simple to make
- If you haven’t got any butter behaving itself at room temperature you can still knock up something delicious
- It’s cheap to make
- Washing up is minimal (one saucepan)
- It’s versatile – serve as a chunk ‘on the go’ or pop in a dish and dress up with cream or custard
- The recipe doubles up easily (we usually do this to get a better texture – crunchy on top and moist in the middle)
What about you? What’s your simplest recipe that you could share with us?
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My simplest recipe (for nights when I just don’t feel like cooking!): I saute 1 medium onion, choppped, over medium heat in a large pot. When just brown, I add 1 large (about 4 cups) can of black beans, 1 small (about 2 cups) can of pinto beans, 3 cups of water, 1/2 cup hot sauce, and a few teaspoons each of cumin, cayenne pepper, and cinammon. Simmer on medium for 1/2 hour, then hit it with the stick blender for a few whirls to thicken. Prep time is only about 5 minutes, it’s one pot, and it’s vegan, too. Love it! (p.s. try it with some cheddar cheese or sour cream on top if you use dairy)
Oh, that looks yummy. My simple recipe would be for “no bake cookies” made from cocoa and rolled oats. I’m sure butter and sugar are in there somewhere too. I haven’t made them since high school. I might have to thumb through and find that old recipe from my mother. I haven’t thought of it in years!
sounds yummy, just of to make it, ta x