Blackberry and hazelnut brownies

     sadly not my picture. It's taken from here

What’s better than brownies? Especially when they are full of good quality chocolate and delicious hazelnuts. I find brownies can be either a hit or miss when bought from shops of cafes as you never know if they are going to be soft, gooey or as dry as a couple of crackers. But with freshly, homemade brownies you can’t go wrong (well not normally).

For this recipe I decided to try lowering its fat content. I decided to do some reading on the internet and I kept coming across the same technique- use apple sauce instead of butter or oil. I'd never heard of this but the more I thought about it the more I could see it working so decided to give it a go.  I decided to try using a 50/50 apple sauce and oil combination and it turned out better than I’d expected! The brownies turned out lovely and soft, and it had the perfect gooey inside that I love. The one thing I felt it needed more of was chocolate so I noted that down and upped it and it tasted perfectly second time round.

Ingredients:
to make around 9 good sized brownies

75ml olive oil

50g of good quality dark chocolate

2 large eggs

120g Caster Sugar

60g light muscovado sugar

15ml of Greek-style natural yoghurt

5ml vanilla extract

150g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

40g hazelnuts- crushed 

150g fresh or frozen blackberries

75ml apple sauce, made from: 

2 large apples

teaspoon of caster sugar
a 22cm square baking tin

To make the apple sauce…

Peel and chop the apples into small chunks.

Place the apple in a pan of hot water and sugar and boil for 5/10mins or until a skewer can easily go through the apple. 

Remove from water, drain and blend until smooth. 

Allow to cool.

To make the brownies… 

Preheat oven to 190oc/ gas 5. Line a 23cm square baking tin with baking paper.

Over a low heat gently melt the chocolate and add in the oil and apple sauce stirring occasionally and keeping a close eye on them. Allow to cool for 10mins.

Meanwhile whisk the eggs, caster sugar, muscovado sugar, yoghurt and vanilla in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Do this with an electric whisk on full speed for a good 5mins.

Pour in the melted chocolate, apple sauce and oil and mix gently until combined.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder together, and then fold into the chocolate mixture with half the hazelnuts and blackberries.

Pour into the prepared tin and sprinkle the rest of the blackberries and hazelnuts on top.

Bake for 20mins and check with a skewer. 

Cool for half an hour.