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A delicious heart shaped valentines brownie with chocolate chips, a Nutella swirl, and even more chocolate decoration on top! Perfect valentines bake.

The day of love is fast approaching, and I am here to give you inspiration on another bake for good ol’ valentines day. Whether you want to make this for a loved one, yourself, or friends.. it’s a cutie.

A thick chocolate brownie is what we all need on valentines day, especially when it’s homemade and utterly scrumptious. I wanted to make a cute heart shaped one, but of course you could just make any of my brownie recipes as a gift!

Valentines day

Valentines day for me is a bit of a blah day, because I tend to find things are very over priced, and I just want to do something nice at home. I always think making a dinner at home, or making a homemade gift is a lovely idea for Valentines, and this recipe is definitely one of those.

Of course, you may want to make a cute heart shaped bake for your friends, a family member or anything really… so don’t worry, this recipe can be used for any occasion. Galentine’s day, anniversaries, etc.

The brownie

Chocolate – for the base of a brownie mix, I always use dark chocolate. I like 70%+ in cocoa content because it’s more consistent in the baking and creates a better base for the mixture.
Butter – you can use either baking spread or actual butter for a brownie mixture
Eggs – as this is a smaller recipe than my normal brownies, I use two medium eggs in total. Two large should also be fine.
Sugar – caster sugar, light brown soft sugar, golden caster sugar etc… they all work well.
Flour – plain flour is the best for this, you want to avoid using any raising agent otherwise you’ll get an odd cake texture.
Cocoa powder – I use a strong cocoa powder for the best flavour

Flavours

When it came to the flavour of this brownie, I went with what I had in the cupboard and fridge, but also what I knew my boyfriend would like to eat. For this brownie, I decided to swirl through some slightly melted down Nutella as it’s easier to swirl. You can of course use biscoff spread, a different chocolate spread, or even leave this bit out.

I also added in some white chocolate chips. I like how the white chocolate chips look in the brownie, but also again, the flavour. You can swap these to milk chocolate, dark chocolate, M&Ms etc. Anything you basically fancy. You can even swap some of the chocolate chips, or the Nutella, for chopped nuts.

The tin

For this recipe, I use a 22.5cm heart shaped cake tin. I wanted this recipe to be as cutesy as possible, and using a heart shaped tin is 100% the way to do this. However, if you don’t have a heart shaped tin, you can use a 7″ square tin for this recipe.

The volume difference between this recipe and my normal brownie recipe is about half, and the odd shape of the heart tin works out at about half of the 9″ tin as well. Therefor, half of a 9″ square tin is a 7″ square tin.

When baking this beautiful recipe, you want to bake them until there is a slight wobble in the middle of the tin. Then, I let them cool fully in the tin and then ‘set’ the brownies in the fridge overnight for a super fudgy texture to the brownie.

Decoration ideas

When it came to decorating this brownie, I went relatively simple because I really didn’t know what to choose! In my giant valentines cookie recipe I use a pink buttercream so I didn’t want to do that again. I sort of wanted to really wham the chocolate into this one.

I used a whipped dark chocolate ganache which is just incredible luxurious, and is so easy to do. I let the melted ganache mixture cool and start to set a bit, then I whip it on a super high speed and it creates a luxuriously smooth whipped ganache.

Add this to a piping bag with your favourite piping tip, and pipe away. Decorate with some raspberries for the red colour, and some valentines sprinkles, and you have the best valentines brownie recipe going.

Tips & Tricks

This recipe will last for 4+ days at room temp
You can freeze the brownie for 3+ months
The Nutella is easily swapped for a different spread or left out
You can replace the white chocolate chips with other flavours
If you don’t have a heart shaped tin, you can use a 7″ square tin