The best brownie in the world?

Transcendent 
Sin - that would be gluttony - never tasted so good

The best brownie in the world? 

Sometime earlier this year - I don't remember when, it's been a busy year - I needed to make something for a dinner party or a birthday, and came across a recipe in my recipe volumes I hadn't made before: twice cooked chocolate brownies.

Fudgy brownie goodness

The recipe came from an old issue of delicious. - November 2009, to be exact - from chef Ben O'Donoghue (you can also find the recipe here). It looked relatively easy, so thought I'd give it a try.

They're pretty easy to make - melt chocolate and butter; beat eggs, sugar and vanilla in Betty; pour in chocolate mixture; gently fold in flour and nuts; pour batter in to tin; bake until nearly cooked.

My goodness, they were good. Everyone else thought so, too. Ever since, these brownies have become legendary. I've made them a few times now - either for dinner parties or work colleagues - and the reactions I get each time range from ecstasy-inducing mumbles, to exclamations of how good they are. I like making people happy.

I made them for my friend Katy's dinner party recently and realised I had never blogged about them, but didn't want to until I had good photos. Then, last week, Katy had a busy week at work and I was cajoled (not that I needed much convincing) into making them again to cheer her up.

The result of taking them to work

I took them into work and this time I brought the camera with me. I should've taken photos of my colleagues' reactions when they realised what I'd brought in - some grinned and did little claps, others squealed with delight. But I stuck to photos of the brownies.

And, I seriously have to admit, they must be some of the best brownies I've ever made. They're rich, fudgy, with a hint of saltiness from a pinch of salt, and crunchy from the macadamias. Oh, and chocolatey. Very chocolatey. Lots of butter, lots of sugar and lots of chocolate. No-one ever said that something this sinfully good was good for you.

They're called twice cooked for a reason. While they're perfect as they are, you can take it to the next level by steaming them for dessert. I did this for the first time last night. I probably didn't steam them long enough to make them truly warm and fudgy, but no matter - with some vanilla icecream, it goes down really well as dessert.

Steamed up with icecream for dessert

Back to sharing them at work, and most people took seconds. I made the mistake of having two, one straight after the other. They're delicious, but spacing them out is recommended. While polishing off the first one, it prompted me to ask my colleague Alex - an American, and therefore perhaps considered an authority on the subject of brownies - whether she thought these were the best brownies in the world. She considered for a moment, before replying that she's had lots of different types of brownies, so it was hard to judge, but that these were pretty damn good.

From an American, that's good enough for me.

Great cakes!

Triumph/Transcendent
Can't quite decide whether these were a triumph or transcendent - on the border, so will give both ratings!

Great cakes!

So I have been cooking this year, just not posting. With autumn and winter approaching - my favourite seasons for food - I'll try and post more. 

But I can post on a couple of recent triumphs, both cakes. Baking cakes is something I've always found cathartic, and given a rather frustrating week at work, I felt the need to bake two. 

I decided to make one for a friend's birthday party I was invited to, and then another when I realised a colleague who complains he doesn't get cake in his office would be in town just before his birthday. 

Then the hard question of what to make. I have so many cook books and recipe scrapbook volumes, that I haven't looked into even half the recipes. Then I found two I had never made before that were easy, simple to make, and - more importantly - sounded delicious. 

For my colleague-who-never-gets-cake, I settled on melt-and-mix white chocolate cake with a dark chocolate glaze from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2. Ms Hay is the queen of quick, simple cakes that taste delicious and this one was no exception. 

Melt-and-mix white chocolate cake

The sweet white chocolate and vanilla cake perfectly contrasted the slightly bitter dark chocolate glaze. The cake itself was not too dry, but did take a little longer than expected to bake. 

It was definitely a hit with all of my colleagues though, with some going back for seconds afterwards and there being none left at all by lunch the following day. 

The other cake I chose for the birthday party was a lemon and raspberry loaf cake. This came out of one of my recipe volumes, and I think it's from the cooking section of an edition of Perth's Sunday Times newspaper.

Although the recipe called for frozen raspberries, fresh ones are currently in season here in Switzerland, so decided to use those instead. It was a good choice, as I think the juice from the fresh berries made it delightfully moist. 

Lemon and raspberry loaf en fete

The flavour of tart lemon and raspberry complemented each other well, with the lemon coming through in the icing on top. Interestingly, several friends had a hard guess trying to pick the fruit that was in it (I hadn't told them), which I was a little surprised by; looked fairly obvious to me! At any rate, comments of 'great cake!' were backed up by the cake having been polished off with nothing left at the end. 

I think of the two, I preferred the taste of the white chocolate cake, but found the lemon and raspberry one easier to make (all done in Betty, my Kitchenaid) and it also turned out more moist, which is something I like in a cake. Thumbs up for both, and they'll definitely go into my list of tried, tested and trusted cake recipes.

Raspberry pavlova redux

Transcendent

A picture is worth a thousand words. I have four of them. Truly flawless food.

Raspberry pavlova redux

You might remember that in my post back in October, Grand Final fever – part deux, I made a chocolate and raspberry pavlova from Nigella Lawson. Back then I gave it a rating of trusty, saying that I had to turn down the oven temperature and also use fresh raspberries. I promised to make it again in summer when the fresh raspberries were out.

Start with a flawless meringue base...

Well, it’s now summer (with a vengeance – they’re forecasting 38C, or 100F, for Christmas Day), and fresh raspberries are in stock, but at $8 for a small punnet, they’re a bit pricey. However, they’re only in season for a few weeks a year, so I thought that morning tea for my last day at work would be a great occasion to make it again. This pavlova screams Christmas – well, an Australian one, at least – but Christmas Day at my mother-in-law’s is just too full of food to do this justice, so I thought I would make this for an appreciative crowd, my now ex-work colleagues.

...top with raspberries, cream and chocolate...

Wow. They were blown away. So was I. Things were looking good the night before when I made the meringue base – and learning from last time, I turned the oven down. Everyone’s oven is different, so I really recommend a bit of trial and error when it comes to oven temps. My oven is a fan-forced one, so it’s really hot, and Nigella’s temps of 180C and 150C were far too hot – you’ll see I burnt the last one (and also the first time I made it before that). Looking at other recipes, I noted that Donna Hay cooks her pavlovas at 150C, turning down to 120C, so I did that, and – meringue perfection. I was really proud of myself when it came out of the oven crisp but not burnt!

...consume gorgeous crispy shell, with chewy centre...

Then this morning, I brought in the cream and raspberries, but forgot to bring beaters to whip the cream with. It was looming as a disaster, when the day was saved by my boss Ros and teammate Ben, who came to the rescue by beating the cream by hand with a fork. Thanks guys! The cream is now perfect, too.

Top with the raspberries, sprinkle chocolate on top – and stand back and let the crowd devour. The last image (taken by Ben, thanks again) of the last piece was taken just before someone came and ate it – so once again, a clean plate.

...and watch the crowd devour for an instant hit!
(Photo by Ben J.)

But, my goodness. This is easily one of the best desserts I have ever made. And I make a lot of desserts, so this is saying something. The chocolate meringue was lovely, light and crisp on the outside; gorgeous and chewy on the inside, just like a meringue should be. The combination of chocolate meringue, double cream and fresh, tart raspberries made for an unbelievably amazing flavour combination. I really recommend you give this a go. It’s not hard either. The tricky part is the meringue and once that’s perfected, it’s just cream and raspberries on top.

I used Betty to whip the egg whites; that was her last job for the year and, in fact, here in Australia for a while, as I’m packing her up and taking her to Switzerland when I move in two weeks’ time. I look forward to more cooking adventures with her then!

The proof is in the pudding

Triumph

Bill Granger’s Self-saucing chocolate pudding – easy to make, easy to eat

Trusty

Lemon pudding – great taste, but need another run as they were a bit dry

The proof is in the pudding

Sorry to use such an old cliché, but for the title of this week’s post, it’s rather apt; Bill Granger’s Self-saucing chocolate pudding and Donna Hay’s Lemon pudding. I made these a few weeks ago now when it was decidedly winterish; this last week we’ve definitely seen the four seasons, including a day where it was 37 degrees (that’s 99 for those of you using Farenheit!), so it’s no longer such weather for puddings.

Self saucing chocolate gooey-ness!

The Bill Granger self-saucing chocolate puddings are ones I’ve been making for a few years now. They’re so easy to make, and if there’s only two of you, this is an extremely easy recipe to halve. Because I never had ramekins – until recently, that is – I had use to my delicate, platinum-plated, but oven safe, good tea cups. Well, they don’t get used for tea, so may as well use them for something! I think halving this recipe might be just a fraction too much for the tea cups, because as you can see, the batter spills over.

It doesn’t matter really, because they taste divine. The nice, sweet, cake-y texture on top gradually gives way to gooey, chocolate-y richness down the bottom. The challenge is to dig down so you end up with a spoonful of both textures – soft cake, with gooey batter. I love to eat this with some really good ice cream; while Betty can make ice cream (although I don’t have the attachment yet), Connoisseur’s Vanilla ice cream is among the best commercial stuff you can get.

Although it’s no longer really the weather for puddings, I’m sure I’ll find one night where I can try the chocolate puddings in the new 1 cup ramekins I bought a few weeks ago. I christened these with a new recipe I hadn’t tried, lemon puddings from Donna Hay.

Lemon delicious!

This recipe wasn’t as easy to halve, and consequently I think it might need some adjusting if you’re baking for just two. It had a great, lemony taste, but the texture was mostly cake and not enough goo. I think I added either too little water or too much batter. The ramekins worked a treat though; they’re the perfect size for this recipe. I’ll try these ones again soon as well, taking into account the need for more gooeyness down the bottom.

On another note, I'm currently on the look out for a new camera. I loathe my current Pentax point and shoot digital one, so I'm looking at DSLRs. Suggestions welcome, but I think I might go with a Canon Eos 500D. I want my food that I make to be food porn, not food forlorn. Hopefully, this will be among the last posts with crappy pictures.

A good tart can be easy

Triumph

While I would’ve given this Trusty myself, I think the last picture speaks volumes

A good tart can be easy

A double entendre for a post title always attracts attention, doesn’t it? But, cooking-wise at least, it can ring true. A couple of weeks ago, my team at work decided to host a morning tea for Pink Ribbon Day, which raises money and awareness of breast cancer, the second most common cancer in Australian women. I decided very early on to make Tobie Puttock’s salted caramel and chocolate tart from the September issue of delicious.

Careme dark chocolate pastry

I’d never made a tart before but, having recently acquired a tart pan, decided to give it a go. And, as the post title suggests, I found it surprisingly easy. I guess I found it even easier having to use the Careme dark chocolate shortcrust pastry, which comes ready rolled. It was divine. I had a little bit left over, so tried making a mini tart with it, but I could have turned the leftover into biscuits to go with icecream.I get nervous making caramel. It seems to take forever and I never think it’ll work out. But then, the syrup that was virtually clear just a moment ago, will suddenly start to colour and caramelise. I love salted caramel. I was first introduced to it via a salted caramel macaron. Who would’ve thought that the sweet, gooey caramel that then gets an unexpected salty hit would work? But it does; just gorgeous.

A slight flaw - the caramel is
pushed out to the sides

Throwing it together was simple enough. But here I will admit a flaw. You would’ve already seen that I’ve rated this recipe Triumph. I’ll explain why in a moment, but I’ll be honest and say that I think I made a mistake when setting the caramel. If you take a look at the image of the tart in delicious, you might be able to make out two distinct layers on top of the pastry; the caramel on the bottom and the chocolate on the top. When I poured the chocolate on top of the caramel layer, I don’t think I’d left the caramel enough time to set, causing the denser chocolate to sink to the bottom in some places and pushing some of the caramel out to the sides. It didn’t look pretty. But it sure did taste amazing. The flavours, especially that salted caramel, just melted together in the mouth.

The presented product

For me to give a recipe a Triumph rating, I used to think it needed to be virtually flawless. I don’t often achieve this and I would have given the tart a Trusty rating myself. However, when I explained to a work colleague what went wrong, he said, ‘but that’s just cosmetic. I bet you it would still taste exactly the same’. And he’s right. Looking over at the plate that once held my tart, I thought that perhaps I’m too hard on myself. My work colleagues absolutely devoured it, and I had comments on how delicious it was and requests for the recipe for the rest of the day.

This says it all.

So I’m going to lighten up. Unlike the tart – it was dense, and very rich. In future, I will give a new rating to recipes that are truly exceptional, that are flawless in every way. When you see a recipe given the rating Transcendent, you’ll know I’ve done something really remarkable. I look forward to plating up my first one.

Grand Final fever – part deux

Trusty

Only the delicious taste saves this from tragedy – gotta turn the oven down and use fresh raspberries!

Grand Final fever – part deux

So a few weeks back, it was the AFL Grand Final. If you’re not familiar with AFL, that’s Australian (rules) Football League. It’s kind of a cross between Gaelic football, football (soccer), basketball even, bit of rugby – it’s kind of a mash of things. But Grand Final day, traditionally held on the last Saturday of September, is a big deal. Over 100,000 people actually go to the match, held at the MCG, and millions more tune in from around the country and the globe. For AFL supporters, it’s a day where you get together with mates and snack on meat pies, hot dogs and sausage rolls – traditional footy fare.

This year was a bit different. The Grand Final ended in a draw – only the third time it’s done so in about a hundred years. In fact, it seems to happen roughly every 30 years – there were draws in 1948, 1977 and this year, 2010. The rules state that, unlike soccer where you would play extra time, the teams call it quits and come back the following week to slog it out and try again. Which is why, unusually, the Grand Final part deux was run – and won this time – on the first Saturday in October.

For the first Grand Final, Emperor D and I gathered a couple of our friends around for the standard footy snacks to watch the game. We threw it together kind of last minute, so I didn’t have time to put too much thought into what we’d serve. When it ended in a draw and we offered to host the game again the following week, I realised I needed to come up with something for dessert. I hit upon something I’d only made once before a few years ago – Nigella’s chocolate and raspberry pavlova.

Chocolate and raspberry pavlova - looks
kind of Christmas-y, doesn't it?

I’m not normally a fan of meringues and things like that. But chocolate and raspberry pavlova? You just know it’s going to taste delicious. Also, I liked the fact that the colours of the pavlova kind of matched those of the team I was going for, St Kilda, whose colours are black, white and red. I thought it would be a good omen. It wasn’t. Second time around, the Saints were thrashed to the tune of 56 points.

Because I’m not a fan of, and I don’t normally make, pavlova, this didn’t turn out as well as it could have. But it certainly wasn’t bad. I don’t think I beat the egg whites enough – or I knocked too much air out of it when I folded in the chocolate – so it ended up flat and collapsed in some places. Also, again, I think my oven is too hot; I turned it down 10 degrees more than I should have, took it out as soon as I could after the recommended cooking time had elapsed, and it still burnt a little in some places. And then fresh raspberries aren’t in season yet, so I used defrosted frozen ones, but I don’t recommend it. They’re a bit too tart in taste and also a bit soggy. Much better off with the perky fresh ones.

But still, it tasted wonderful. The meringue had a nice chocolatey taste and was crunchy on the outside and soft and gooey in the middle. Although fresh raspberries would’ve been better, the frozen ones served their purpose when it was all put together with the cream, meringue and chocolate shavings. I think this might be one I have to try again in summer; in fact, it would make a fantastic Christmas dessert. Might give that a go.