Annabel Langbein’s Chocolate Date Brownies are one of my all time favourite brownie recipes – gooey, sticky, moist, and intensely dark. Jump to Recipe
Happy Easter everyone! I am currently sitting on the plane to New Zealand waiting to head home for the holidays, desperately trying to upload these photos before I get told to turn my computer off! Cannot tell you how excited I am – to see my family (its been six weeks), to be in Queenstown, make lots of food for this blog, see friends back in Auckland, and actually get caught up on university work for once! I couldn’t let Good Friday go by without posting some sort of recipe – and since it is Easter, and I haven’t had a chance to make hot cross buns like last year, it needs to be chocolate.
This Chocolate Date Brownie recip, by Annabel Langbein is one of my all time favourite brownie recipes – gooey, sticky, moist, and very dark chocolately. And they are super easy – I have never had them not turn out perfectly. It doesn’t get any better.
The dates are like a secret ingredient: you would never know that they were there, but they add SO much to the brownie, giving it the sticky texture of a sticky date pudding but with an ultra chocolately taste. It also makes them a wee bit healthier, so you can snack on them all Easter weekend with less guilt! You could also add your choice of nuts for extra crunch.
The dates also mean that the brownie keeps well in a sealed container for over a week. So go ahead and try these out for your Easter chocolate fix!
- 2 cups finely chopped dates
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 cup boiling water
- 200 g finely diced butter , at room temperature
- 4 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups caster sugar
- 1 cup cocoa , sifted (the darker the better)
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 250 g dark chocolate , chopped into small chunks
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Preheat oven to 160°. Grease and line a 20x30cm slice tin.
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In a large bowl, stir together the dates, baking soda and boiling water. Add the butter and mix until melted. Leave for 20 minutes to allow the dates to soften.
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With a fork, mash the softened dates to break them up to a smoother consistency. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined.
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Whisk in the sugar, then add the sifted cocoa, flour, and baking power and stir until smooth. Add the chocolate chunks (and nuts, if you wish)
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Pour evenly into slice tin, smoothing the batter into the edges. Bake about 45 minutes, or until skewer inserted in the middle comes out almost clean and springs back to touch.
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Leave in the tin to cool before cutting into squares.
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Store in a sealed container.
This recipe works! yes some recipes on the internet do not work but his one does. I even made mistake in the order of ingredients ; forgetting the eggs, but even adding them to mixture at the end did not harm to the overall result. These are nice and fudgy brownies with a lovely aftertaste. like others I too halved the sugar content and they are still lovely and sweet, moist and chocolaty. I baked them in two round sandwich tins too as my baking tray got lost over the Xmas so I reduced the cooking tome by 15 mins.
Thank you Margaret, that is absolutely lovely to hear. I do love how fudgy they are as well, and it is great how flexible the recipe is with baking times and ingredient quantities. So glad you enjoyed them and hope you are having a lovely Christmas break!
Do you have the recipe in grams and not cups? Thanks
Hi sorry Chris, I don’t. Next time I make it I will make sure to weigh everything! Unfortunately I posted this recipe quite a while ago when I wasn’t routinely weighing all ingredients.
I have mine in the oven right now….
I have only made brownies once before, but foolishly didn’t save the recipe and after spending hours trawling through the millions of brownie recipes online; this is the one I have decided on.
The only thing I altered was the sugar quantity, but only by adding half a cup less than the recipe states.
Upon reading the slightly healthier alternative, I thought these would be less luxurious…but when adding all the ingredients…these don’t really seem that ‘healthy’ to me!
Can’t wait to see how these turn out.
Thank you!
I’ll be back in 50ins or so….or I’ll be in chocolate heaven!
Hope they turned out well for you Alice! It is quite a lot of sugar, I agree – but you know, it’s brownie, right?! Even most ‘raw’ brownies turn out to be very high-calorie haha.
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Hi love these… but you may want to edit step two to say BOWL not bowel… ha ha … it did give me a giggle.
hahaha thank you for catching that!!!
These are amazing! I ve made them a few times and today I decided to add some peanut butter to them omg delicious! Thank u for this recipe, it s a winner 🙂 I want to try making these more peanut buttery.. can you tell me how much you added and at which point?
Thank you! that is so lovely to hear. I didn’t add any peanut butter so not sure how much you should add – you could try to swirl in some at the end onto the surface of the brownie.
When it says 3/4 cups is that 3-4 cups or 3 1/4 cups?
Hi Louise, it means three quarters of a cup. Hope that makes sense
hi ..tried this recipe .it was too too good as per my taste.kids were enjoyin evry bite . thanks .i reside in africa tanzania
OMG, these look delicious! Before I dive in, a question: how crucial is caster sugar, would you say? I’m also eyeing those awesome looking whipped caramel brownie cookies which also call for the caster sugar so wondering about caster vs regular there as well. Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth! I think you could use regular sugar in these brownies, but caster sugar (also called granulated sugar) just tends to dissolve more easily through the batter, and I would recommend using caster sugar in the brownie cookies. You can also blitz regular sugar in a food processor to DIY caster sugar!
Oooh, great idea! I’ll give the food processor idea a go 🙂 Going to make these next week for a birthday celebration! And… will find a reason to make the brownie cookies as well soon 🙂
I, like some of the others, put less than half the sugar and they were perfect! I also used slightly less cocoa powder, but added 175g chopped pecans. My family said they were the best brownies they’d ever had! Sending love from the UK x
Hi
These look great!
Do you use plain flour or self raising flour?
Also salted butter or un salted?
Hi Cole! I use plain flour and unsalted butter. Hope that helps!