Recently, and for the first time in my life, I encountered a rotten egg. I hadn’t noticed that one of the eggs we’d brought in from the hens was slightly cracked. A week or so later I cracked it in on top of another egg to beat for baking with and saw immediately that something wasn’t right.

I won’t go into details so as not to put you off the recipe below. But the eggs had to be dumped and I was left with two good eggs and a four egg recipe. The easy thing to do would have been to make half the quantity of brownies, but what would everyone else have eaten then?

Not one to give up easily, I decided to take a gamble and throw in some natural yogurt in place of the two bad eggs. Well, the gamble paid off. I ended up with brownies as delicious as the original recipe but extra moist and fudgey. In fact they are currently neck and neck with these ones in my affection.

The Recipe

250g dark chocolate (50% cocoa)
250g butter
250g sugar
2 eggs
2 dsps Greek-style natural yogurt

180g plain flour

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (fan). Line a baking tin (approx 15 x 20 cm) with baking parchment.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a sauceppan over medium heat. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Crack each egg, one at a time, into a small dish to check that each is ok then tranfer to your mixing bowl, one at a time.  (Now I’ve remembered that you are supposed to do that. What’s that saying about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?). Beat together with the sugar till pale and fluffy.

Mix the yogurt into the cooled chocolate mixture then fold in the beat egg mixture.

Gently fold in the flour.

Pour the batter into the baking tin and bake for 18-20 minutes. When they are finished the top should look dry and crackled but the bownies should feel soft.

Leave to cool in the baking tin overnight or at least for several hours, then cut into squares to serve.

These brownies will stay moist for four days if covered with foil or in an airtight container.