Chocolate, raisins, and rum. Really one of the best flavour combinations for desserts. Rum brings out the chocolate flavour, and the raisins give just a tiny bit of additional sweetness. As you might have noticed, I love baking brownies. Out of all the brownies I made, these might just be the most fudgiest. There is a lot of batter, and they require a bit more time in the oven, but they are worth it.
You can serve them plain, or with a dusting of icing sugar, or with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. Speaking of ice cream, you can even use these brownies as a base, spread a layer of vanilla (or caramel!) ice cream on top, freeze the entire batch, and serve them as a gorgeous ice cream cake.
Ingredients
300 grams cooking chocolate (at least 40% cocoa)
100 grams dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa)
250 grams butter
200 grams sugar
4 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
180 grams plain flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
200 grams raisins
3 tablespoons dark rum, divided
200 ml lukewarm water
Preparation
Take the raisins, place them in a small bowl, add one tablespoon of dark rum and the lukewarm water, and let them sit and absorb the water for about an hour. When they are ready, proceed with the brownie batter. Chop up the dark chocolate and the cooking chocolate finely, and dice the butter. Take a heavy-bottomed saucepan and add in the butter, followed by the chocolate. Melt everything together slowly over medium low heat or in the microwave. Be careful when you melt this much chocolate, because it can burn quite easily if left unattended or left on too high heat.
Once the chocolate is melted and smooth, remove the saucepan from the heat and add in the sugar. Mix briefly, and let the batter cool down just slightly. Then add in the eggs, one at a time, whisking vigorously after each. This will prevent burning in case the batter didn’t cool down enough. Add in the vanilla and the remaining rum, and mix everything together.
Drain the raisins very well and add them to the batter as well. Then carefully sift in the flour with the dark cocoa powder, and very gently fold everything together. Because it is a big batch of brownies, about 30-35 spatula strokes should be enough to blend, but not to overmix the batter. Take a rectangular baking pan (23x33 cm; 9x13”), lightly grease it, then line it with parchment paper. Pour in the batter, level it and bake in a preheated oven, at 180°C (350°F), for about 40-45 minutes. Make sure they do not overbake. Once baked, let them cool completely, then serve. Yields 20 servings.
