Raw chocolate fudge brownies

A healthier brownie rests on three simple substitutions. First, replace white flour with blended nuts and seeds - here buckwheat and walnuts - which bring fibre, protein and good fats. Next, replace the sugar with dried fruit: dates sweeten while also binding and adding fibre, which softens the rise in blood sugar. Finally, choose pure cacao rather than an already sweetened chocolate preparation. The raw version goes further by dropping the baking altogether, but a baked brownie can follow exactly the same logic.

Two different things need separating here. A baked brownie is judged with a knife blade, which should come out with a few moist crumbs but no liquid batter. A raw brownie, on the other hand, is never baked at all: it holds together thanks to cold and to solid fats - coconut butter, coconut oil - that set in the fridge. So the marker is not baking but firmness to the touch: the base should cut cleanly, without crumbling or sticking to the knife. If it stays soft, it simply needs more time in the cold.

The minimalist version of the raw brownie comes down to dates, nuts and cocoa powder. You blend the pitted dates to a paste, add the walnuts (or pecans, or almonds) for crunch, then the cocoa, and press the whole thing into a tin before chilling for an hour. Common proportions run to around 200 g of dates, 150 g of nuts and 40 g of cocoa. That is exactly the base of this recipe, to which two chocolate layers are added here.

The quickest is precisely the no-bake one: fifteen minutes of work, no oven to watch, no risk of missing the texture. If you want to go faster still than the version shown here, skip the topping and keep only the base and the ganache - the result stands up perfectly. The one stage you cannot compress is the time in the cold, one to two hours, which lets the fats set. Best made the day before, then, rather than at the last minute.