baking

Chocolate Brownie Recipe

- Alex 1 Comment

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Even I’m starting to lose track of which chocolate brownie recipe I’m up to now … but here’s yet another one! I’m slowly making a dent on all those bookmarks …

I’ve also decided that at some point I need to start collating some statistics about the different ratios of ingredients and the outcome in the finished product because then I should be able to give you, the reader, some insight into what type of brownie recipe you need to follow to achieve a certain outcome.

Today’s recipe comes to us from Leite’s Culinaria, where they are grandly titled “Robert’s Absolute Best Brownies”. I am always a little sceptical of “best” or “best ever” because that’s the type of thing that’s in the eye of the beholder. But yes, these were pretty good.

The recipe provides imperial measurements for the chocolate and butter and, as my scales do both, I used imperial rather than converting to metric. I tried converting the cup measures for the dry ingredients to metric (because I think weighing ingredients is the only way to go) but the conversions I found for the sugar seemed way off, so I resorted to cup measures.

The original recipe is very enthusiastic about beating everything by hand, but that doesn’t happen in this household. If you have a stand mixer, grab the flat beater and let’s start!

Preheat the oven to 175°C (not fan) and base line a baking dish (8″x8″ – so slightly smaller than I use for many of my brownie baking adventures).

Melt 8 oz of unsalted butter with 3 oz of dark chocolate. I did this in the microwave but you can always use a bain-marie. Tip the smooth melted mixture into your stand mixer and beat in ¾ cup of caster sugar (Andy felt these brownies were a bit on the sweet side so you may like to reduce that) and 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

I’m not convinced that the vanilla extract adds anything so feel free to leave it out. Personally, I’m heading towards omitting it from chocolate brownie recipes in future – it seems unnecessary, having almost no effect on the finished product and I think it’s detrimental to the taste of the batter pre-cooking.

When the chocolate, butter and sugar mixture is smooth, add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating between each. Then add ¼ cup of plain flour and beat like crazy. The original recipe says to beat vigorously for 1 full minute. I let the KitchenAid do its thing until the mixture was quite pale, light and mousse like.

Finally, take a cup of walnuts (or other nut of choice), roughly chop them and stir them through the batter. You’re best off doing this bit by hand, irrespective of how you’ve got to this point!

Tip the batter into the prepared baking dish and you’re done – into the oven. The recipe states 30 minutes but that was nowhere near long enough for my baking dish/oven. Perhaps my dish was a little smaller so the brownie mix was deeper as I ended up baking them for about 45 minutes. You want the mixture to be cooked but you don’t want it to be dry: there still should be some moisture on the tooth pick.

Allow to cool and then cut, serve with cream and eat!

This brownie had an excellent crust – really crispy (and crumbly – what a mess it made cutting it up) with a lovely squidgy middle. Of course, with so much chocolate and so little flour it was really chocolatey too. I agree with Andy that the sugar could be reduced slightly and I see no reason why the filling would need to be restricted to nuts – I’m a big fan of chopped up chocolates in brownies!

The finished product is very reminiscent of the last lot of brownies, and you can check out the full collection here.

If you’re after something chocolate but NOT a brownie, check out Jamie Oliver’s chocolate pudding recipe.

Banana Cake Recipe

- Alex 3 Comments

Banana cake or banana bread? Who knows what the difference is? Certainly not me. It seems to be a bit of a geographic thing … if you’re in the eastern states of Australia (particularly New South Wales) it’s banana bread, similarly if you’re in the US or Canada.

Hopefully this family recipe will be what you’re after, whether you’re searching for a banana bread recipe or a banana cake recipe!

Now – the first thing you need is the time and the patience as baking is a tedious process. If you are not willing to put in the efforts, we highly suggest you buy your cakes online in Singapore by clicking here. Lets start with three super ripe bananas. The horrible ones that have gone all black. It can be tricky to score yourself three at the right level of super ripeness all at the same time BUT I have discovered that you can freeze bananas. All you need to do is take your super ripe banana and pop it in the freezer. You don’t need to wrap it or anything. When you want to use it, remove it from the freezer a few hours in advance (they defrost quickly) and place it on a plate or in a bowl. This is quite important because defrosting bananas lose quite a lot of water.

Make sure you peel the banana when it’s only defrosted a little bit (let’s say 15-30 minutes out of the freezer). Straight out of the freezer it will be too hard, and if you wait too long it will all be too gluggy and impossible to peel. When you’re ready to use the banana, drain off the water it’s lost and ignore the fact that it looks really really ugly and unpalatable!

For the cake, preheat your oven to 180°C (convection, not fan) and grease a 1lb loaf tin.

Beat together 125g of unsalted butter and 175g of caster sugar. If you have a food processor go ahead and use this! Add 2 eggs and beat well before adding 300g of self raising flour. This mixture will be quite stiff at this point.

Add your three overripe bananas, well mashed, and ensure the mix is well combined. Finish by adding 60mL (or ¼ cup) of milk, into which you’ve dissolved 1 tsp of bicarb. This will loosen the mixture up a little and you’ll be able to pour it into your loaf tin.

This will almost fill the tin – but don’t worry – you shouldn’t end up with cake mixture all over your oven!

Bake at 180°C for about 45-50 minutes. In our oven (which is a little slow on convection) it took 50 minutes. I actually started checking the cake around the 30 minute mark but at that point it was still very very wobbly. As usual with cakes, you want a skewer or toothpick to come out clean. And naturally, you want your cake to be lovely and golden.

When done, remove from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes and turn out onto a wire rack. When completely cool, top with chocolate ganache. You could also sprinkle a few chopped walnuts in a decorative line down the centre.

Perfect for afternoon tea … and using up bananas.

How To Make Chocolate Ganache

- Alex 2 Comments

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Very often I don’t bother icing cakes because I am lazy. Making icing takes time, putting it on the cake takes time (and it takes even more time if you want it to all look pretty) and actually, washing up from the icing making takes time and effort.

However, most cakes are actually better if you do bother. And it might come as a surprise to know that making a chocolate ganache is much quicker than messing around with icing sugar.

Firstly, you have to commit yourself to paying a little bit of attention because you are going to microwave your chocolate. If we were to start using a bain-marie for this, it would take a long time and we’re here to be quick.

These quantities make enough chocolate ganache for a 1lb loaf cake but would also do for a 23cm round cake.

Take 50g of dark chocolate and 50g of unsalted butter, chopped, and melt in the microwave. I do this in 30 second bursts on full power and I hover by the microwave, keeping a beady eye on what is going on. After each burst, I give the chocolate and butter a stir and decide whether or not it needs another full 30 seconds or not. I suggest the first time you do this, you check more often than you think. If you melt chocolate this way regularly enough you’ll get a feel for it – but a mid-melt stir or two remains essential.

Allow the chocolate and butter mix to cool slightly and then stir in one generous tablespoon of pure (NOT thickened!) cream. Give it a really good stir – the mixture will start to thicken and in no time it will be at the right consistency to spread on your cake.

There may even be a little left for a taste test of your own …