Marshmallow Chocolate Brownies

At school, a few friends and I are trying to raise money for charity. Some turn to sponsored runs, we turned to the kitchen. Rather than bringing in a mismatched array of different cakes in small quantities, we decided to do one thing and do it well. Brownies. Our hopes were high as we'd previously done a similar event with pancakes, which attracted a scary quantity of students. As I stepped out of my last lesson before lunch, I thought I might need to drum up a bit of awareness of our stall, oh how wrong I was. Amidst the corridors I could hear "have you seen the pancake stall?" "do you know they're selling them with maple syrup too?"... no need for more advertising. It doesn't take a lot to gather students when food's involved. But we were a little unprepared for this demand, the staff in the school food tech rooms had pulled out at the last minute, leaving us to be more than a little creative: We sent one person to a friend's house (in the town in which our school is) to make the pancakes, then another friend acted as a pancake shuttle bus (oh the relief of being able to drive!), whilst the rest of us appeased the waiting swarms with plates of marshmallows! Every time a new tray of pancakes arrived, they sold out in minutes and our 'taxi' was sent back again. All in all, our hearts were left pumping a little faster than we'd expected for a pancake stall, but we left with sold-out stock and plenty of plans for take 2... Brownies.

Although we wanted to keep to the one item method, we decided that it'd be worth having a couple of different flavours. The first sale is this Wednesday, so I thought I'd write up the first flavour today, the second tomorrow and the third on Wednesday... and I will of course say how it went!

Recipe adapted from Mary Berry's Chocolate Chip Brownie recipe in her Baking Bible.

Ingredients:

Makes 12

140g margarine

190g caster sugar

2 eggs

40g cocoa powder

50g self raising flour

50g mini marshmallows (or regular marshmallows, chopped)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees c fan (or 180 without fan)
• Beat together the marg and sugar until pale.
• Add the eggs and beat again.
• Add all of the remaining ingredients and ensure all is thoroughly combined.
• Pour into a lined baking tin (20cm by 20cm square if possible) and cook for 30 - 40 minutes (you want the top to be crisp and to feel solid, but not sponge-like - when pressed, the brownie should give, but not feel like liquid (=undercooked) or spring back (=overcooked).
• Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

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