The connection between food and memories comes into play big time for me with this one. I was lucky enough to have a lovely friend living four houses down the street from me as I grew up and this was our staple baking treat. Frances, this one’s for you 🙂 We always called these chocolate brownies, so that’s what’s stuck for me, but really it’s more of a lovely moist chocolate sheet cake. The recipe is extremely easy to make and it has never failed me.

Edit note: This was the very first recipe that I posted on this blog back in 2011, but it needed a little facelift with some new photos and a little text updating. The chocolate brownie recipe has stood the test of time though!

Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Cake

1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
3/4 cups cocoa
1 1/2 tsp bicarb
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 180°C

Sift dry ingredients together.
Beat oil, egg, milk, vanilla essence and add to dry ingredients.
Add boiling water and mix well.
Pour (yes, it should look runny) into a baking tin lined with baking paper (I use a pyrex dish about 30 x 20 cm) and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Icing

50g butter
30ml cocoa
45ml milk
250g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
50g chopped nuts (optional)

Melt butter and milk
Sift in icing sugar and cocoa, add vanilla and mix well. If you have sugar lumps, just keep mixing. Allow to cool a little before spreading icing over cake. Sprinkle nuts over icing.

Allow to cool fully and then cut into squares.

Tip: When cutting, it can get a bit messy,. My trick is to place some old newspaper under the tray/cooling rack I’m cutting it on. That way you can just fold up the newspaper afterwards and chuck it in the bin.

I’d love to see your Pure Sweet Joy DIYs. Show me on Instagram using #puresweetjoyblog or email me at deborah [at] puresweetjoy [dot] co.za. Like what you see here? Follow along on Facebook or Bloglovin and subscribe to the newsletter for exclusive access to the latest news and freebies.