
Happy Easter!
Have a lovely weekend, whether you'll be contributing to the estimated £30 million pounds due to be spent at the nation's garden centres this long weekend, whiling away your down time on rail replacement bus services or spending the bank holiday trying to desperately interpret the weather forecast, which is currently predicting, depending on what you read, a heatwave, a washout and snow.

Or, perhaps like me, you'll simply squeezing an entire year's worth of novelty chocolate consumption into four days?
In between unwrapping another very cute Easter chocolate hedgehog, there is a lot of brilliant Easter baking to be enjoying. A fruity Simnel cake perhaps, juicy, spicy hot cross buns or these scrumptious Easter Egg Brownies.

To take part, simply upload your Easter themed pictures to twitter, instagram or vine, from the delicious food you're enjoying to Easter Egg hunts, using the hashtag #GoodEgg to support Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.

Easter Egg Brownies
185g unsalted butter
185g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
3 large eggs
250g golden caster sugar
100g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
10-12 mini solid chocolate eggs*
50g melted white chocolate to decorate
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line a 20cm square tin.
2. Melt the butter and chocolate in a small, heat proof bowl suspended over a pan of simmering hot water. Stir occasionally and remove from the heat once melted
2. Whisk together the eggs and sugar until thick, pale and doubled in volume, which may take several minutes. Gently fold through the melted chocolate, avoiding overmixing
3. Sift in the flour and cocoa powder and fold together. Add in the mini eggs
4. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25 minutes or until the top of the brownies has developed a thin crust
5. Allow to cool in the tin. Once completely cooled use an egg shaped cutter to cut out the Easter Egg shapes
Baker's Notes
- *The mini-eggs are an optional extra. And should you have any spare Easter Egg chocolate (!) you can add 100g roughly chopped chocolate to the mixture
- One advantage of the Easter Egg shapes is that you'll have a fair bit of leftover Brownie edges, or 'Baker's Bonuses' as I refer to them
- The Brownies will keep in an airtight container for a good two weeks (as if in our household... a good two hours more like) and in the freezer for up to a month.
With thanks to Waitrose for sending me a voucher to cover ingredient costs and an Easter themed box of goodies