Delicious Christmas Reindeer Brownies

Brownies are one of my signature recipes, and if I do say so myself, I have the recipe down to a T. Of course I bake them the way I like them, with a crispy crust and seriously gooey, wonderfully chocolaty insides. If you prefer your brownies to be cakey then look elsewhere! When I saw a picture of reindeer brownies floating around the internet I knew I wanted to recreate them.

Let’s begin with my brownie recipe. I use Delia’s American Brownies recipe but without the nuts and with more chocolate.

Top Tips: For Chocolate I love this one, this is important, go for the best quality you can.
These are really easy to make dairy free just use a dairy free spread, good dark chocolate contains no milk. 

1. Melt your chocolate and butter. You can do this in a microwave if you break your chocolate into small chunks, it will melt well into the butter. Only warm it enough to just melt the chocolate, stir well to help it along, you don’t want to overheat.

2. Mix all of your other ingredients together in a large bowl. You don’t need to use an electric whisk here, good brownies needn’t be light and fluffy, more dense and gooey.

3. Add your chocolate mixture to your other ingredients and whisk to combine.

4. Pour into two lined 7inch round tins, or a standard brownie tin if you don’t want to make rounds for reindeers.

5. Cook in a preheated oven at 180 degrees or 160 degrees fan for 25-30 mins. Your brownies are done when you stick a cocktail stick or cake tester in and it comes out clean. Remember these are better underdone than over.

6. While the brownies are cooking, melt 1 1/2 oz dark chocolate in a Bain Marie and let it cool before piping antlers onto greaseproof paper. Make these as thick as you can so they are sturdy and with a long base for poking in. Cool your chocolate first in the fridge if it helps to pipe, don’t worry about tempering the chocolate, I quite like the matte look for antlers. Chill these in the fridge before using them, so they are very hard.

7. Once your brownies are out and cooled, cut them into 8ths. Mix up a small amount of buttercream (1 part butter, 2 parts icing sugar) and pipe on two eyes and one dot for a nose onto each triangle. Pop on chocolate chips for the eyes and red Smarties for the nose. Push your chocolate antlers into the ends of the triangles and your reindeer are ready!

As the recipe makes two brownies cakes, I decided to use the other half for some really easy Brownie Cake Pops which I thought would also be really cute as reindeer. Following the recipe above, all you need to do is:

1. Make a small amount of extra buttercream in a large bowl (add some cocoa to make it chocolaty and darker) I didn’t measure this but you only need a very small amount as these brownies aren’t dry. Crumble in your brownie and mix with a large spoon until it’s sticky and can be rolled into a ball. Roll into inch tall balls, place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and pop in the fridge for half an hour.

2. Once cold and hard, pipe on buttercream eyes and noses and place on Smarties and chocolate chips. Using a blunt knife make some slots for your chocolate antlers – these are a lot more dense than brownie so need a little help. Carefully place your antlers in and you’re done!

Honestly I think that the classic brownies worked better, but these are cute and fun to make. Think of them as brownie truffles rather than cake pops because they are dense and rich and best served with ice cream!

I’d love to know if anybody tries these out or just uses my brownie recipe – seriously do, it’s so easy and so good! Or let me know if you’ve tried any other easy Christmas bakes!