Lily Vanilli + Bake Club

After being asked if I would be interested in getting involved in Lily Vanilli's latest project, which was a collaboration with 'Bake Club'. I was thrilled to take part in this months challenge.Throughout March Lily Vanilli has teamed up with 'Bake Club' to inspire amateur bakers to get in the kitchen. Lily has set a chocolate challenge, which is just in time for Easter, perfect!

Lily Vanilli says of the collaboration: “I'm really excited to be part of Bake Club and mentoring March's challenge. It's fantastic to see a community of passionate people rally around their love of baking, and experiment with ingredients or dishes that might be new to them. I can't wait to see everyone's chocolate desserts.”

After reading over what Lily had to say on the collaboration and her involvement in the project, plus drooling over photos of her bakeries cupcakes, I felt inspired by her passion in baking and wanting to inspire a new generation of bakers. So I definitely wanted to join in the fun  and invited over some friends for an afternoon of baking to see what we could muster up. We made triple chocolate brownies which, not to blow our own trumpets, were the ultimate in  chocolatey, gooey, delicious goodness!

Lily Vanilli in her bakery on Columbia Road (Outsourced photograph)

If you fancy joining in with the project, don't forget to tweet and instagram photos of your chocolatey bake with #bakeclub to join in the fun!

If you'd like to give them a go yourself, heres the recipe.

Ingredients:

250g Unsalted butter

200g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken up

80g cocoa powder, sifted

65g plain flour sifted

360g caster sugar

4 large free-range eggs

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Line a 25cm square baking tin with greaseproof paper. In a large bowl over some simmering water, melt the butter and the chocolate and mix until smooth. Add the cherries and nuts, if you're using them, and stir together. 

In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and sugar, then add this to the chocolate, cherry and nut mixture. Stir together well. Beat the eggs and mix in until you have a silky consistency.
Pour your brownie mix into the baking tray, and place in the oven for around 25 minutes. You don't want to overcook them so, unlike cakes, you don't want a skewer to come out all clean. The brownies should be slightly springy on the outside but still gooey in the middle. 
Allow to cool in the tray, then carefully transfer to a large chopping board and cut into chunky squares. 

Recipe sourced from JamieOliver.com