Chocolate walnut brownies recipe

For Sunday lunch my husband Andrei baked chocolate walnut brownies from a book Sweet Melissa by Melissa Murphy. We fell in love with Melissa's pastry at her cafe Sweet Melissa in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York. The recipe is simple yet brownies turn out to be delicious.

To bake chocolate walnut brownies we will need:
2 sticks of unsalted butter
4 ounces of high quality Belgian unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 eggs
1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup of walnuts, chopped



Melt the butter and chocolate. Remove from the heat and keep warm. In a separate bowl beat together eggs, sugar, and vanilla on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add the melted chocolate and mix. In yet another bowl whisk together the flour and salt.



Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture in 3 batches, mixing on low speed until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the nuts by hand.



Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a square shape cake pan. Pour the mixture into the pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until the sides begin to pull away from the pan. Remove to cool. When cool cut into 12 brownies and serve.

The secret of the brownies is in the high quality chocolate. A great place to buy such chocolate is Trader Joe's stores where it's sold in big bars for a very reasonable price.

Fresh Spring Flowers in Lavender and Violet

I saw those beautiful flowers on a bush near my house. The bush has just started to bloom and is covered with lavender violet colored tender and fragile flowers. It's such a short period when all those flowers are out to make us happy. I try to carry my camera with me all the time.

Flowers inspire me to create earrings, necklaces and bracelets. I like to work with silver plated wire as it enables me to make twisted designs reminiscent of beautiful vintage smith craft and metalwork that one still occasionally come by at an antique shows nowadays.