Brownie-and-Tiffin Tipper Truck Birthday Cake

The cake:

The Brownies: 

This recipe is from Jamie Oliver's "Little Book of Big Treats"

250g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids, Green & Blacks type stuff)

80g cocoa powder

65g plain flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder

360g caster sugar

4 eggs

Optional: Jamie suggests 75g dried sour cherries and 50g chopped nuts. I used 50g of white chocolate (chopped into chunks) and 50g of walnut pieces, but I think it could have taken twice that amount of additions!

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degC. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper. Jamie suggests a 25cm square tin. I didn't have one of those, and neither did Tesco, so I used what Tesco called a 31cm tin. It's rectangular and about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, and did the job perfectly.

In a large bowl over simmering water, melt the butter and the chocolate and mix until smooth. In a separate bowl, sift together the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder, then stir in the sugar. Add this to the chocolate/butter mixture. Stir together well. Beat the eggs and mix in until you have a silky consistency. I added the optional chocolate chunks and walnuts at this point (although Jamie says to add them to the melted chocolate), because I wanted half-and-half. I split the mixture in two and added chocolate chunks to one half and walnuts to the other, then...

Pour the brownie mix into the baking tray (half at one end and half at the other - they'll meet in the middle and some folk will get both), and place in the oven for around 25 minutes (I cooked mine for 30). Unlike cakes, a skewer shouldn't come out clean, because they need to be gooey in the middle. Once cooked, allow them to cool in the tray then transfer to a chopping board and cut into squares.

I baked these on Friday afternoon, cut them up and assembled the cake on Saturday, and they were still gooey and delicious on Monday evening, when we finished them up.

The Tiffin (Sookies):
Made following this recipe for sookies (last recipe in the post). I made double quantities with a few extra biscuits thrown in and this filled an A4 size baking tray. I then melted a bar and a half of dairy milk (large bar, and only because the posh chocolate went grainy rather than melting) and spread it over the top. The texture is more biscuity and crunchy than tiffin. These also lasted until Monday evening.