This week’s recipe is for chocolate pistachio brownies from the October 2007 issue of Olive magazine. The recipe is by Michelle Noerianto and is rated easy.

Chocolate pistachio brownies

1 hour * EASY

unsalted butter 125g, melted, plus extra for the tin

shelled pistachios 100g

dark chocolate 200g, roughly chopped

brown sugar 200g

olive oil 5 tbsp

eggs 3

vanilla extract 1 tsp

plain flour 75g

cocoa powder 25g

baking powder 1/2 tsp

white chocolate 100g, roughly chopped

[NB This is a British recipe so a tablespoon is 15ml and a teaspoon is 5ml].

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a tin (about 25cm x 16cm x 3cm). Put the pistachios on a baking tray and toast for 7 minutes. Cool.

Melt the dark chocolate in short blasts in the microwave, stirring occasionally until just melted. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the chocolate, sugar, butter, olive oil, eggs and vanilla extract. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder over and fold gently to combine.

Fold through the pistachios and white chocolate. Pour into the prepared tin and spread evenly. Bake for 30 minutes or until sticky crumbs cling to a skewer when testing. Cool in the tin then slice into squares to serve. Makes 12.

PER SERVING: 422 kcals, protein 5.8g, carbohydrate 39.9g, fat 27.7g, saturated fat 11.8g, fibre 0.9g, salt 0.17g

Road Test

A note on ingredients: I used Green & Blacks dark cooking chocolate and cocoa powder and Nestlé Menier Chocolat Patissier white chocolate. The vanilla was Taylor & Colledge Vanilla Bean extract and the eggs were organic and medium-sized. The pistachios were Waitrose home-brand and the flour was Sainsbury’s home-brand, while the sugar was Tate & Lyle. I was out of brown sugar so I substituted raw sugar.

Method: The instructions were clear and easy to follow. The recipe assumes that everyone has a microwave, which I don’t believe to be the case. This is likely not a problem since common sense dictates that you can also melt the chocolate on the stove.

I missed the fact that the ingredients listed the butter as melted. Magazines are always trying to save space so this was probably included in the ingredients line in order to save a line of text in the method. It might have been clearer to put this in the instructions but it did not matter since my electric whisk was able to blend the room-temperature butter into the mix quite easily. It might have been more difficult had the butter been taken straight from the refrigerator.

I checked the brownies after 28 minutes and they had already started to singe on top. After re-reading the recipe, I accept that this was my fault since I had the oven turned to 180C and not to 160C, the setting recommended for a fan oven. I had to scrape off the burnt bits with a knife and then try to disguise it with some sprinkled icing sugar. The brownies still looked good enough for their intended purpose - to fill a lovely mauve and grey floral-patterned cake tin and serve as a birthday gift for a friend.

Results: The brownies were quite crumbly, even after leaving them to cool. I don’t know whether this was because of the sugar substitution or a fault in the recipe.

I ate some of the crumbs (probably equivalent to half a brownie) and found it a little much for my taste. It was very sweet and rich and I felt slightly sick afterwards. I am sure it wouldn’t be a problem for the genuine Sweet Tooths among us.

Verdict

I like the idea of using pistachios in a brownie recipe but I don’t think it needs white chocolate on top of everything else. The flavour was a bit of a distraction and it felt like it was trying a little too hard to impress. Possibly the green of the nuts and the white of the chocolate were partly there to make the brownie more photogenic.

Olive tests its recipes three times and should not be blamed for my error with the oven temperature. However, I would not use this recipe again as I would prefer to use a simpler recipe and then customise it. For example, with any brownie recipe, you can substitute different nuts - as well as pistachios, almonds, walnuts, macadamias, hazelnuts and pecans are all good. And with recipes that call for raisins or sultanas, dried cranberries are a nice substitution.