Brownies 3 ways
Brownies... they seem so easy to make, but are so tricky... and they come in so many forms: cake-y, chewy, fudgy... so many different recipes claim to give the same brownie..
And baking...One minute it's undercooked and all gooey, the next minute it's baked and hard as a rock when cooled... and then absolutely terrible to eat.. ugh...
Anyway after staring at the 2 big packs of chocolate in my fridge, I decided that I would try the same recipe 3 ways, just to see how they would turn out: I adapted it from Jamie Oliver's brownie recipe:
Ingredients:
65g butter (unsalted)
75 g dark (or semi-sweet) chocolate
30g walnuts
100g sugar
28g cocoa powder
38g plain flour
2 eggs (medium-sized)
pinch of salt
Control Method (C) - which follows the original recipe very closely
1. Whisk the eggs and sugar and salt until light and fluffy, almost ribbon stage.
2. Over a bain-marie (water-bath), melt butter and chocolate
3. Stir the melted butter and chocolate into the whisked eggs and sugar
4. Fold in the cocoa powder and plain flour into the wet mixture with a spatula. I mixed the cocoa and flour together with a whisk before-hand. Then stir in the walnuts.
Method 1
This was a slightly more 'effort' version.
1. Separate the eggs into whites and yolks. Beat the whites till stiff peaks (glossy) with some sugar (like 20g) and salt.
2. Whisk the yolks and remaining sugar and cocoa and flour until the mixture is even.
3. Melt butter and chocolate over a bain-marie (water-bath) and mix this into the yolk mixture.
4. Fold in the egg whites to the yolk - chocolate mixture.
5. Stir in the walnuts.
Method 2
The normal way cakes are usually made.
1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one by one and beat until homogeneous.
2. Melt chocolate over a bain-marie (water-bath) and stir it into the mixture.
3. Fold in the salt, flour and cocoa powder. Stir in the walnuts.
Here's the outcome after cooling and chilling in the fridge for a few hours.
And baking...One minute it's undercooked and all gooey, the next minute it's baked and hard as a rock when cooled... and then absolutely terrible to eat.. ugh...
Anyway after staring at the 2 big packs of chocolate in my fridge, I decided that I would try the same recipe 3 ways, just to see how they would turn out: I adapted it from Jamie Oliver's brownie recipe:
Ingredients:
65g butter (unsalted)
75 g dark (or semi-sweet) chocolate
30g walnuts
100g sugar
28g cocoa powder
38g plain flour
2 eggs (medium-sized)
pinch of salt
Control Method (C) - which follows the original recipe very closely
1. Whisk the eggs and sugar and salt until light and fluffy, almost ribbon stage.
2. Over a bain-marie (water-bath), melt butter and chocolate
3. Stir the melted butter and chocolate into the whisked eggs and sugar
4. Fold in the cocoa powder and plain flour into the wet mixture with a spatula. I mixed the cocoa and flour together with a whisk before-hand. Then stir in the walnuts.
Method 1
This was a slightly more 'effort' version.
1. Separate the eggs into whites and yolks. Beat the whites till stiff peaks (glossy) with some sugar (like 20g) and salt.
2. Whisk the yolks and remaining sugar and cocoa and flour until the mixture is even.
3. Melt butter and chocolate over a bain-marie (water-bath) and mix this into the yolk mixture.
4. Fold in the egg whites to the yolk - chocolate mixture.
5. Stir in the walnuts.
Method 2
The normal way cakes are usually made.
1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one by one and beat until homogeneous.
2. Melt chocolate over a bain-marie (water-bath) and stir it into the mixture.
3. Fold in the salt, flour and cocoa powder. Stir in the walnuts.
Here you can see the 3 mixtures in their baking cases. It is interesting that the mixtures already have different colours at this stage, even though all the ingredients were identical.
Bake them for 20 mins in a preheated oven at 180 deg C.
And here's where it started to not go so well.. The original recipe only calls for 15-20 minutes baking. The brownies were still liquid in the middle at the end of 20 minutes. I left the brownies to cool, hoping that they would be firmer after cooling... They were still liquid after 4 hours. So I had to put them back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
Brownie C was the one that had the crispy top and fudgy inside. Brownie 1 was sticky but cake-like and Brownie 2 was chewy and stiff.
Some thoughts and improvements:
Use a thinner tray / container... I think the cake cases were not ideal.. they made the brownies too thick. Brownies are quite rich, so not very ideal to have a thick slice. Also, if I used a tray I could have been able to get the brownies done in 15 minutes.
Stay tuned for my next try!
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