Ladies Circle - Pimms, Puds and Chocolate Brownies

What did you do last night? This is the question regularly asked by the Ladies Circle UK to their members. 

Ladies Circle UK is a club for women aged 18-45 who want to meet friends, have fun and also take part in fundraising activities. The three F's - fun, friendship and fundraising are at the core of the organisation. With over 250 clubs UK wide meeting twice a month, there is a lot going on in various Ladies Circles each month.

I joined Ladies Circle about 3 years ago and since then have done things and gone places I would never have typically gone on my own.

Last night our local club, the St Albans Ladies Circle held our annual Pimms and Puds evening. This was a social event for everyone to get together and celebrate summer by drinking some yummy pimms and sampling some even more delicious desserts lovingly made by some of our members.

 

I made Nigella's Chocolate Brownies as a dessert. Nigella calls them her emergency brownies as they are so easy to make and can be pulled out of the bag hours before they are needed. The brownies are so tasty, really gooey and oozing with chocolate. They are also very moreish so be warned!

Us ladies spent time chatting, and playing a couple of games. Sharon showed us her famous two strawberries in the mouth trick - very nice Sharon!! We also spent time hearing some very frank accounts of life. Nowhere else could you find out about the indulgent habits of ladies at a local gym, the ins and outs of laser hair removal and first hand scientific research conducted by one of our members into canadian men and body hair!!  I for one am certainly a lot more clued up now than I was before!!

After many jugs of Pimms had been consumed, some special guests arrived to celebrate with us as Sharon recreated the fabulous Royal Wedding party she held in April. Much hilarity ensued as everyone tried the masks on. The masks are scarily convincing - especially Monika as William - uncanny!!

A fantastic night was had by all and it was lovely to spend time together and get to know everyone a bit better. You can find out more about Ladies Circle here. There are Circles all over the country, so its very likely there will be one near to you. For local ladies, here is the St Albans Circle website. Come and join us.

Nigella's Everyday Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients
150g Unsalted Butter
300g light brown Muscovado sugar
75g cocoa powder, sifted
150g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate soda
pinch of salt
4 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
approx 150g milk chocolate, chopped into small nugget chunks
icing sugar to dust.

1 x 25cm square x 5cm deep lined baking tray

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees, gas mark 5.  Melt the butter over a gentle heat in a medium sized saucepan
2. When the butter has melted, add the sugar, stirring with a wooden spoon over a low heat until it blends into the butter
3. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, bicarb and salt, then stir into the pan and mix (this will be a very dry mixture and not completely blended at this point)
4. In a bowl or jug, whisk the eggs with the vanilla extract and then mix into the brownie mixture in the pan
5. Stir in the chopped chocolate as quickly as possible and scrape into the prepared baking tin
6. Spread the mixture evenly with a spatula and cook in the preheated oven for approx 20-25 minutes,  It will look set - dark and dry on top, but wibbly underneath and a cake tester will come out gungy
7. Transfer the tin to a rack to cool before cutting into 16 and dusting with icing sugar.