After Eight brownies

190g butter

470g light muscovado sugar (or coconut or palm sugar)

145mls maple syrup

500g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

8 eggs, beaten

190g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

300g box After Eight mints

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees/gas 5. Line a 20cm x 30 cm tin with parchment paper.

Melt the butter, sugar and maple syrup together over a gentle heat, preferably in a non-stick saucepan. It will look like sludge but as it heats up, it will eventually become softer. You want it pretty hot, but keep stirring to make sure you don’t burn the bottom of the pan.

Take it off the heat, then add the chopped chocolate and stir so it melts. This will take a few minutes of stirring or whisking.

Once you are happy the chocolate has melted, add the beaten eggs and again get stirring. I think I changed over to a hand whisk at this stage. Then, once the mixture is glossy and smooth, fold in the flour and cocoa powder (using a metal spoon).

Put half the mixture into the lined tin, and then plonk the After Eights on top, cover with the remaining chocolate mix and put in the oven for 30-35 minutes.

You want the centre to be a little gooey, but not soaked as it will keep cooking even when you remove it from the oven. Let the brownies cool down fully and either wrap in foil and freeze, or refrigerate overnight. These are great served with nice coffee.

Dime bar and peanut butter brownies
Substitute the 300g of After Eights in the above recipe with four Dime bars and 140g of peanut butter (roughly half a jar).

Make the same basic mixture. Pour half the mixture into your lined brownie tin and then dot the broken dime bars on top. Then pour the remaining chocolate mixture on.

Then, with a fork, put blobs of peanut butter on top in even drops. I then did a little swirly drag. Because the mixture is still warm, the peanut butter does blend into its surroundings a little. Enough to get it off the fork anyway. Then bake as per above. Don’t eat them warm, wait till they cool down and fudge up.