A little bit of fun for you all on a Wednesday! You may have noticed that I’ve been going through a little bit of a Brownie phase of late – I developed a simple store-cupboard recipe for Food Thoughts Cocoa using their rather wonderful Cacao Powder. This was around Easter time so I loaded them up with the tiniest little sugar-coated chocolate eggs that I could find. They were adorable and delicious.
Cacao Brownies for Food Thoughts Cocoa (click for the recipe)
What I love about Brownies is their portability and convenience – they are far easier to transport than cupcakes as they do not need to be meticulously packaged to protect them. A bashed up Brownie tastes just as wonderful and their ramshackle appearance is part of their charm.
I do love to decorate though…
For my friend Pip’s Birthday, I decided that Brownies would be an appropriate gift and (importantly) easy to consume in the pub over drinks! Because Pip has kept bees for many years (and given me jars of delicious honey), I thought that bees would make a nice personal decoration on her Brownies. This was easier to achieve than I thought it would be(e) so I thought I’d share this with you in case you ever want to make your own bakes buzz.
Begin by spreading Renshaw Simply Create Chocolate Pour Over Icing onto a completely cooled slab of Brownie.
Dollop 16 blobs of Renshaw Simply Create Caramel Pour Over Icing at even intervals over the Brownie. The aim is to have one complete bee on each cut slice of Brownie.
Pour Renshaw Simply Create Chocolate Pour Over Icing into a disposable piping bag and cut a tiny opening at the tip. Use this to squeeze 3 lines across each bee body.
Snap a giant white chocolate button into half, then quarters, then eighths to make wing shapes.
Press 2 wings into the Brownie at the top side of each bee.
While the chocolate icing is still fairly wet, sprinkle honeycomb over the rests of the Brownie. I used honeycomb pieces but you could just as easily smash up a Crunchie for this job!
Once the bees have had 30 minutes or so to dry, use an edible pen to dot a little eye on each one to bring them to life.
Slice and serve, or box up for a very pretty and completely delicious gift!
Renshaw Simply Create Pour Over Icings and a whole range of gorgeous products are being rolled out nationwide and will be coming to a store near you very soon. If you are lucky enough to live in the North West, Booths already have some in stock so you can get a head start on all of us Southerners!
Stay gorgeous!
Cxx
