If this is the case, then my next r

If this is the case, then my next recipe, from the Ballymaloe Cookery School, could do with a hefty dose of cocoa. It contains a mere 50g chocolate to 100g butter and 200g caster sugar, as well as 2 eggs, 75g flour, ½ tsp of both baking powder and vanilla extract, and 110g chopped walnuts. Although the results are delicious, they have a definite toffee-ish flavour, rather than being assertively chocolatey, which I put down to the high sugar content. The first recipes for brownies, which appeared in the early years of the last century, called for even less chocolate – then a luxurious, and rather exotic ingredient in comparison with the all-American abundance of dairy – so perhaps these have some call to authenticity, if not modern tastes. I notice all that sugar has given these brownies a delectably brittle crust – if only they weren't quite so sweet.