With the weather being so beautiful, I thought it only fitting to bake something equally as indulgent.
This is what I love about baking, well more like love/hate. If I want to try something out, I can and most of the time it works out and sometimes, well I'm not going to say it doesn't work out, it just turns out differently to how I had anticipated it to come out.
That was that case today. Brownies are fickle. Sometimes they work and sometimes they turn out more cake like. To me, this really isn't a bad point, it just isn't a brownie per say. But they were crispy on the outside and had a gooey beyond belief inner.
These were rich, gooey and intensely chocolaty, even with the orange. One and done is all you need when eating these. They go really well with some cool, clotted cream and orange zest, given that they have orange in them.
But hey it's baking. It is supposed to be fun and full of experimentation. You never know if you don't try. And once you try, it just means that you can work at it until you get it just right. It's gonna be pretty annoying at times, but that is life. Sometimes things don't work, but you get on with it.
So, next time, I think I'll leave them in to bake for a little longer or just try another recipe. Baking comes down to two things in my mind, timing and the recipe.
1) You need to obviously bake them for long enough.
2) Having the right recipe goes a long way in making a solid baked good. Solid in the sense that this is my way of saying really good and not as in the texture.
The thing with these is they are rich as hell. So if you have a dark side that loves something indulgent and completely caters to your sweet tooth, then you'll love these. Me, I think I'm going to look for something a little more mellow. These brownies, or as I call them, cake brownies, really need something light or tart to cut through the sweet density.
The ingredients for this are pretty basic and are the kind that will be sitting in your kitchen cupboards.
This is a Good Food recipe. Which to me, normally is a pretty safe bet, but this didn't really do it for me. For me, to make a brownie up there in the scale of deliciously fabulous brownies, it needs to be crispy on the outside and light and crumb like on the inside. It needs to have the right balance between gooey and crumbly. I know, like I said, they are kind of a pain to make. But I love baking, so I'll give it a try sure. :)
First you'll need a large, deep, non-stick baking dish. Something you'd use to roast vegetables or something in. Either way, it needs to be deep enough to be able to contain the chocolate mix and allow enough room for it to rise.
The ingredients you'll need are;
- 200g butter, softened and chopped into little chunks. I used unsalted as that is what I had in the house.
- 200g Dark Chocolate, chopped up. I used the 85% stuff, but next time, again to make it less rich, I'd use something like 70%?
- 1 large Orange, zest. I used 2 and added the juice as well.
- 4 Eggs, whisked and combined
- 350g Caster Sugar
- 100g Plain flour
- 50g Cocoa Powder. I used around 25g cocoa powder to 25g of hot chocolate powder
- 100g Dark Orange Chocolate. I didn't have this, so used another dark chocolate bar
So, as you've probably noticed, these ingredients are all pretty flipping intense. Really decedent. They are all so high in percentage, so to make these a little more relaxed and mellow in their flavour, I could add a lower percentage of chocolate and cocoa like in the 50-60% range? Or less dark chocolate and more milk? All of these are things to try and test.
The good news, they are quick, easy and simple to make. There are basically five simple stages.
1) Melting the chocolate, butter and orange together in a pot
2) Whisking the eggs and sugar together
3) Mixing this altogether and adding the flour and cocoa
4) Pouring them into the baking dish and leveling out
5) Baking, checking and then cooling them
To start making these you need to preheat the oven to 160 C in a fan oven. This is 180 in a convection. This is something I would also change, I think I had the oven on a little too high, probably like 170 C. I think this made the top set too quickly, without giving the center enough time to bake and become crumbly at the beginning. Instead it set on the outside and was a little too gooey on the inside. So next time I'll make sure to have it at like 150 C so that it doesn't get too hot. Then bake these slowly and allow them time to bake slower and become crumbly and delicious.
You need to grease the baking dish. To do this, melt a little butter and use a pastry brush to give the dish an even, non stick coat. Line with baking paper and that is one job done.
You need to fling the butter cubes, chocolate and orange into a pot and gently heat this until it all melts and goes from this, chunky, mess of ingredients to this silky, velvety chocolate gorgeousness.
Take this off the heat once all the chocolate has melted and it has this wonderful glossy look. Leave to cool completely, as when you add this to the eggs and sugar, you don't really want it to scramble. Hmm, scrambled egg flavoured brownies. Yuck.
Whisk the sugar and eggs together until they become foamed up, light and fluffy. This should have the same look as it does when you are making a Swiss roll, another fickle dessert. They do love to crack. But if you tip out the Swiss roll sponge onto a sugared piece of baking paper on top of a slightly damp tea towel and then roll it up and cool it like that, it'll make things a lot easier.
Once the eggs have reached this stage, turn the mixer right down, to the lowest speed it'll go and whilst it is mixing away, add in the chocolate, butter and orange mix until it is all combined.
Bake this for like 30-40 minutes until it is set and when you put a skewer in it comes out clean. This is a fine line between baked and over-baked.
Once these are baked, they are great sliced up and served with some clotted or thick cream and a little orange zest. Anything that will take away the density and intensity. I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself slightly, but there isn't many ways to describe these accurately.
Anyway, that is this baking experiment done for today and i'll be back soon with another bake. I might even post about potatoes at some point. Just to mix it up a little. Why not?
Thanks again and have a lovely evening all!
Ciara
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