"Burned Almond Brownies" - (gluten-free)

I've decided to make brownies - again! This time the nuts take the place of flour. And in this case, the nuts were some very caramelized almonds (or in Norway, we call them "brente mandler"). The recipe is based on Alice Medrich's recipe from her book"Bittersweet". The flavour of the burned nuts was actually too overpowering, and there was a kinda taste of coconut in there afterwards (there is no coconut in the recipe!). If you're going to make this I would recommend roasted nuts, or perhaps some slightly carmelized nuts (just put sugar and nuts in a pan over high heat, mix constantly until golden). The consistency of these brownies was very nice, moist and chewy all at once!

The good thing about brownies is that there is no leavening agent, and they don't really rise in the oven. This means that it's better to underbake than overbake, cause you can always return them to the oven later if they're too wet.

Recipe for Almond Brownies

Makes about 8-12 small brownies. You can double recipe, but use a tin twice as big.

Precook inst.: Turn oven to 200 C, line a 10-12 cm cake tin with a baking sheet.

58g Chocolate, 86% or more (you can use 60-70% but use 10g less sugar)
58g Butter
115-120g Sugar
45-50g Almond or Hazelnuts (roasted in oven at 200C for 20min, then ground to powder)
1 Ecological Egg

Instructions:

1. Melt butter and chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. When melted and hot to touch, take of heat.
2. Add sugar
3. Add egg('s if doubling recipe)
4. Add Nuts. Mix with spatula for 1 minute.
5. Bake for 20min - at 200 degrees C - until a pick/knife comes out with a moist crumb. It will firm up as it cools. Serve with whipped cream infused with a tbs of liquer (I used something called "mozart chocolate orange liquer", as seen in picture below - it's got a fancy lid).