Nutella Brownies for World Nutella Day

Happy Nutella Day! After "Wear a green shirt day" and what not, now here's something worth celebrating! Not that I need a particular day to dig into that jar of Nutella I have been hiding.

Ever since I came across Jamie's blog post which talked about these Nutella brownies, I have been just waiting for an excuse to whisk them up.Today seemed like the perfect day. And I didn't even need a whisk- just a bowl and a spoon. It took about 10 mins to make the batter, then pop in the over for another 11 or 12 and best of all just 4 ingredients! It's probably the simplest thing I have ever made. Even my one year old could make this- well at least in a couple of years. Recipes like these just make the world a happier place don't you think?
This is from the cook book "Desserts 4 Today: Flavorful Desserts with Just Four Ingredients" by Abigail Dodge which features easy to make desserts made with just 4 ingredients. I've got my eye on that book!

Nutella Brownies 
Recipe source: "Desserts 4 Today: Flavorful Desserts with Just Four Ingredients" by Abigail Dodge via Jamie's blog here

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Nutella spread (195 gms)
• 1 large egg
• 5 Tbs all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup chopped hazelnuts ( I didn't have hazelnuts so used slivered almonds instead)
• Optional- 1 tsp instant coffee powder- My addition, not part of original recipe

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-cup mini muffin pan with paper or foil liners. I used my silicone cupcake molds and slightly greased them with vegetable oil.
• Put the Nutella and the egg in a medium bowl and whisk - you can use a spoon, until smooth and well blended. 
• Add the flour and mix, whisking with the spoon and scraping the sides of the bowl, until everything is well blended. 
• (I also added 1 tsp of instant coffee powder to the batter simply because I can't leave well enough alone and feel coffee magnifies chocolateyness)
• Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins about ¾ full. I used a tablespoon measuring spoon to scoop the batter into the molds and weighed them each on my digital weighing scale to make sure I had approximately the same amount of batter- about 40 gms in each mold.
• Sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts/almonds if you like ( I preferred them without the nuts) 
• Bake until a pick comes out with wet, gooey crumbs, 11 to 12 minutes. You might think it is not done and want to bake it for a few mins more. Don't! The brownies harden slightly while cooling. So unless you dislike gooey brownies ( in which case we can't be friends) don't over bake. 
•  Set on a rack to cool completely. Serve (eat) immediately or cover and store at room temperature for up to 3 days- if they last that long. 

This recipe seems quite forgiving. I only had 1/4 cup of Nutella left in my secret stash so I halved the recipe and used one egg white instead of an egg and it came out fine. I baked it for about 10 minutes and tested with a toothpick. Using half the recipe I got 6 mini brownies and they were all gone in an instant.
They were tender and slightly gooey in the center but with a thin crackly crust- everything that a good brownie should be, and of course the unmistakably Nutella flavor which is stronger after a couple of hours.

Just FYI- an empty plastic jar of nutella (375gms size)  weighs 35 gms so if you want to know how many gms of Nutella you have left in your jar, simply weigh your jar and subtract 35 gms.

Need more Nutella awesomeness? Check out:

 Nutella ganache roses and ruffles cake                            15 minute steamed Nutella cupcakes

Nutella stuffed butter cookies

Nutella Macarons

I am sending this to  Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso, for World Nutella Day 

Also Sending these to Divya for her Brownie event!