SHF23 Surprise Inside - Brownie Explosion...

Surprise!
I’m joining in the greatest Food Blogger’s sweet-tooth event: Sugar High Friday. This month’s theme is, big surprise!, Surprise Inside and is hosted by Alanna from A Veggie Venture.

I love my sweets but yet I had a hard time choosing what to enter.
What is the ultimate surprise?
Finding a broken nail from the hostess in your dessert is also a surprise, but not really the one I was hoping for…
But what then?
What’s the best base and what’s its best surprise?
The answer was actually rather simple: chocolate.
chocolate, chocolate and... chocolate!

I began a bit of experimenting and ended up making these dense and dark brownies. Very rich, pure, oozy and delicious. Instead of making one big one, I put them in individual little muffin-tins, and for the big surprise…
I buried cherry liqueur pralines inside them.

Can you really think of a nicer surprise than finding a soft kirsch centre, an explosion of flavour, inside the best brownie you’ve ever tasted?

The whole thing went quite well actually - I made the batter, placed the surprise-filling in the tins, covered them up and placed them in the oven… - but let’s just say it was a real surprise to find that after 20 minutes 12 little chocolate volcano’s had arisen in my oven, very angry and spewing out their lovely sugary-kirsch lava…

OK, this was not really the surprise I was hoping for(!)

One tip, (in retrospect quite logic, but still…) make sure you completely cover up the bonbons - I used two different kinds of liqueur pralines (see photo above) and left the ones with those nice stems a bit uncovered…not my best move.
If you leave them uncovered, the alcohol will run out easily and vaporize when it’s chocolate layer melts…and they will turn out like this!

But luckily -surprise!- this didn’t ruin them at all (!)
they still looked very beautiful and they tasted absolutely amazing. Dark and dense, so rich and overwhelmingly chocolaty with still a delicious soft oozy kirsch centre…

Definitely worth a try!

I’ve added of course, - no surprise here - the recipe for you to try (and love)

Brownie Explosions (makes 16)

- 250g butter (2 sticks/1 cup)
- 250g best quality bittersweet chocolate (1,5 cup) chopped
- 4 eggs
- 325g (1 2/3 cup) fine granulated sugar
- 150g (1 ¼ cup) all-purpose flour
- pinch of salt
- 16 Cherry Liquor pralines.

1. Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F) and grease and flour a muffin-tin

2. melt the butter and chocolate on low heat, stirring once in a while. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Mix in a different bowl the flour and salt.

3. Take the chocolate mixture away from the heat when it’s completely melted, and let it cool off a bit before adding it to the eggs.

4. Add the chocolate mixture to the eggs and mix well. Add the flour and mix until you’ll have a smooth batter.

5. Place in every muffin tin a praline and cover them COMPLETELY with the batter. Fill every form. bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until done. The top will be dark and dry, but the centre still sweet, dense and compact. Be alert; the difference between a nice sticky brownie and a dried out one is just a couple of minutes!

6. Let them completely cool in their forms and keep in an airtight box.