Chocolate Brownies

My daughter makes the best brownies I know, well that at least is what I have always thought and I get her to make a batch occasionally when she visits.This means that in the last nine years I have not made brownies, so you can imagine my surprise when I telephoned her to ask her for the recipe, "But it's your recipe" she said. I had completely forgotten that when she set off to university I equipped her with some of what I considered essential recipes, brownies being one of them.

She sent me the recipe via text, very modern, and I have tweaked it so that she and I will continue to make different brownies to each other.

For this recipe you will need;
250g of chocolate (70%)
250g of unsalted butter
400g of caster sugar
4 medium eggs
140g of S.R.flour
120g of walnuts pieces
100g of white chocolate chips
100g of dried sour cherries
50ml of seriously strong fresh espresso coffee
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Begin by placing the butter and chocolate (not the white chocolate chips) in a large bowl over a small amount of simmering water. Switch off the heat and leave for 10 minutes until the chocolate is completely melted while you line a baking tin with baking parchment; I use one that measure 30cm by 20cm by 5cm.
Set the oven to 180C
When the chocolate butter mix is fully melted allow it to cool for 10 minutes before stirring in the sugar and mixing thoroughly, beat in the eggs and coffee. It's important at this point to keep mixing until you have a smooth even consistency. Stir in the flour and salt and again beat to achieve a smooth consistency before you finally add in the nuts, cherries and white chocolate chips. Pour into the prepared baking tin and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Test the brownies at 30 minutes by pushing a toothpick or wooden skewer into the centre, unlike the test for when a cake is cooked the stick should come out slightly glistening with the mix. You need to judge just how wet the stick can be and this will only happen with experience, too wet, i.e. too much mix on the stick and the centre will be seriously wet when the brownies have cooled, no real hardship, what you need to avoid is the stick coming out completely dry, this will mean your brownies will taste delicious but not have the yielding texture that they should. Divide and cut the brownies while still a little warm.

Notes:
Clearly you can bring your own variation to this recipe, you can vary the nuts and dried fruit, but essentially this is a good recipe for a basic brownie, producing 18 brownies in all.