Dinosaur Fossil Brownies Recipe

by Shannon Furniss - 23:24

I've been really into baking recently, especially with my nearly-two year old nephew. I love teaching him how to cook/bake, and getting him involved with the simple steps of a recipe. He always loves watching my stand mixer whisking cake batters etc, and very much enjoys eating the end products!

Today, we were testing out a possible recipe for his 2nd birthday party, as his party is dinosaur themed. I wanted to make something different to cupcakes, as there would already be a birthday cake. So I decided to make brownies, with a dinosaur twist.

These Dinosaur Fossil Brownies are dark/milk/white chocolate brownies, with chocolate buttercream icing, crushed Oreos and white chocolate dinosaur fossils on top. It was my first attempt at making these, and my first attempt as chocolate work. I don't think I did a bad job with the fossils, and the brownies were amazingly gooey. These are very chocolatey, so if you aren't a big chocolate fan, then you won't enjoys these.

Ingredients

Recipe should make 12 brownies.

Method

1- Prep a square tin, roughly a 21cm x 21cm tin. Rub a small amount of butter all around the tin and then stick a square of greaseproof paper on the bottom. Put to one side, and pre-heat the oven at 180C.

2- Place 185g softened butter and 185g dark chocolate (cut into chunks), in a medium sized bowl, suitable for heating on a hob. Using the bain-marie technique and on a low heat, melt and stir the two ingredients together. Once melted, take the bowl from on top of the saucepan, and place to one side to cool to room temperature.

3- Whilst the butter/chocolate mixture is cooling, chop the 50g of white chocolate and 50g of milk chocolate into small chunks, and put to one side. In a small bowl, sieve the 85g plain flour and 40g of cocoa powder together. Then in a stand mixer (or hand mixer & bowl), crack the three eggs in and tip in the 275g of caster sugar. Mix on a high setting, until thick and creamy, & so the mixture is nearly double in size.

4- Remove the bowl from the mixer, and pour in the cooled chocolate/butter mix. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the chocolate into the egg mixture. Be gentle and slow, to try and not remove the air from the mixture.

5- After, sieve the flour/cocoa powder into the eggy/chocolate mixture, and again, gently fold the mixture together. It should look gooey and fudgy, but don't over mix. Then, stir in the white and milk chocolate chunks until they are dotted around the mixture.

6- Pour into the prepare tin, using a rubber spatula to smooth out the mixture. Place in the oven for 25 minutes, or until the top has a shiny & papery crust. Remove from the oven, leave to cool in the tin, and then once cool, turn out onto a cooling rack.

7- Whilst the brownies are cooling, make the icing and prep the toppings. Firstly, melt 50g of dark chocolate using the bain-marie method, in a small bowl. Leave to cool. Then, in a medium bowl, whisk the 100g of butter until soft. Slowly whisk in the 200g of icing sugar to the butter, and then add the vanilla extract.

8- Once the chocolate is cool, fold in the melted chocolate to the butter/sugar mixture, until fully combined. If the mixture is a little stiff, add in a dash of milk.

9- For the crushed Oreo topping, bash 10 Oreos in a food bag, with a rolling pin. Put to one side.

10- For the dinosaur fossils, follow the instructions on the icing tube and pipe out dino fossil shapes. I printed a template online and traced the fossils onto cling film. Leave to cool in the fridge for a few minutes.

11- To assemble the brownies, first spread a thin layer of icing onto the brownies. Then press into the icing the crushed Oreos, to give the impression of dug up ground. Then, I cut the brownies into 12 rectangles.

12- Then place onto the Oreos, the white chocolate fossils. I just placed the fossils on top, but you can stick them down with a little bit of the icing. Also, it doesn't matter if the fossils break up, as that adds to the fossil dig look.

And that is it!

Finished!