Brownies

I havent blogged in ages, been so bogged down by work lately, and I am so tempted to shut down this blog and just blog at my main blog since the readership is so low anyway..but I shall perservere...hahah...so here's a long overdue post on my brownies..

I am crazy over brownies, like I am crazy over anything chocolate. But I have to admit that I am quite a snob when it comes to brownies. I love my brownies to be gooey and fudgy and chocolatey, instead of the dry cakey brownies sold in my places. Thus I am quite fussy about them, and seldom buy it outside unless I know for sure its a sure winner with me. Rich and good brownies are hard to come by, and nothing but the best would do.. Now, the brownie factory has some good stuff and a mind boggling variety, though I think there isnt a need for such variety, the best brownies are often plain old fashioned walnut fudge brownie. I think Famous Amos' super fudge brownies are also really good. And also coffee club's brownies a la mode, which comes in brownies smothered in choc sauce and vanilla ice-cream. NYDC's are also quite nice, though I suspect that minus the ice-cream and the chocolate fudge, it would actually be just normal. Oh, and did I mention mine too? hahah.

Brownies are really very easy to make. But there's the art of mastering how long to leave it in the oven, which I havent quite gotten. Its either overbaked or underbaked. But I have decided that its better to underbake than overbake. You know why? Cos when it comes out of the oven piping hot, there is nothing nicer than to savour the first piece of your hard work and when the soft oozy brownie just melts in your mouth, its nothing short of orgasmic, especially if you happen to have vanilla ice-cream at hand..In my case, it was rather on the soft and gooey and ugly side, but hey, no one was complaining, and it was gone within a day. So far, I have used different recipes for my brownies, and all were great. This time, I used a recipe from a food blogger called Orangette. Her description of the brownies made me want to try it ..here goes:

Ingredients:
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
4 ounces best-quality unsweetened chocolate,chopped
2ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate,chopped
cups granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup toasted walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
2. Whisk together flour and salt, set aside
3.Melt butter and chocolate together(microwave or use a saucepan like I did and use low heat). When the mixture is melted and smooth, add 1 cup of sugar, stir until melted and remove from heat. Add vanilla extract and pour mixture into large bowl.
4.Put remaining sugar and egg into a bowl and whisk by hand. Pour half of it into chocolate mixture, little by little, stirring gently with rubber spatula. Beat remaining sugar and egg mixture on medium speed(with electric mixer if you are lazy like me) until they are thick, pale and doubled in volume and fold it into the chocolate mixture gently. When it is incoporated, fold in the remaining dry ingredients.
5.Pour batter into 8 inch square pan. Bake for 30-35 mins(the original recipe called for a shorter time) or until toothpick stuck in the middle comes out without gooey batter sticking to it. It would also be cracked at the top and tender in the middle. Again, I emphasize to avoid overbaking.
6. Cool in a rack, and cut into rectangular pieces.

The original recipe called for 25mins baking time. When I cut it, it was still too soft, so I threw it back into the oven for another 5mins. It came out, still soft, thus it was very hard to cut it even after cooling it. I decided to dumped everything into a paper cup, and thus it looks so ugly. I found a good way to salvage it was to refrigerate it, cos it became like fudge more than brownies. They were really delicious, dark, chocolatey and fudgy and not too sweet....the recipe is definitely a keeper, though I have to bake it longer next time...

Melted chocolate with butter..ooh lala 

Pouring the egg mixture into chocolate mixture 

Ugly but yummy brownies 

Close up...warm brownies still glistening...totally melt in the mouth

Today was baking day again. I havent baked in almost a month, and my fingers were itching to do something, and everytime I walk by famous amos and get a whiff of the cookies, I remind myself that I can do just as good.

And today, after about 4hrs later, I was rewarded with the fruits of my labour and was highly pleased with the results. I tried a new recipe today- chocolate viennese fingers. I had bought a piping set a month ago and was dying to use it, and finally got a change to do use it today. It was relatively easy to make. Cream the butter and sugar, add egg yolks, add flour and put the mixture into the piping bag. I initially had difficulty piping,but it got easier with more piping. After 12mins in the oven, out came golden and wonderfully soft viennese fingers. I put it aside to cool and started on chocolate chip pecan cookies.
I soon realized that it was no mean feat juggling so many things. The kitchen was in a mess. My mum came in and tsked at me quite a few times. I was toasting nuts, creaming butter and sugar, melting chocolates and processing oats all at the same time. It is a wonder nothing went wrong and I didnt forget any step. And while I was baking,quite a lot of cookie dough went into my stomach. They are really quite delicious, but of course the real thing is better. I used the following recipe for my famous chocolate chip cookie, and I modified it a little and also added raisins to it. I got this recipe from a recipe book a long time ago and have been using it ever since. It is actually called the Neiman-Marcus chocolate chip cookie and the story goes of how someone actually called up the department store(Neiman marcus) for their "secret" chocolate chip recipe and was told the charge would be ""two-fifty", and the person said to charge the bill to his credit card, only realizing later that the actual charge was $250, and he decided to get even by passing the recipe around. And since then, it has been going round and round till it got into my kitchen =)

Ingredients:
2 ½ cups quick cooking oats
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup salted butter, room temp
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cups chopped nuts(optional: pecan, walnut…etc)
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chip

1. Adjust 2 racks to divide oven into thirds. Preheat to 375F(190celsius)
2. In food processor, process oats until they are ground into fine powder.
3. Combine oats, flour, baking powder and soda in large bowl.
4. Beat butter, sugars on medium high speed until light and creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla until well-blended(do not overbeat at this stage). Add flour mixture at low speed until blended. Stir in nuts and chocolate chip until well distributed. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, 1 inch apart.
5.Bake 15-20 mins until golden brown. Reverse sheets during baking to ensure even browning. Immediately transfer to wire racks to cool.

I divided the dough into two, and added raisin and cinammon powder to one, and chocolate chip and pecan to the other. And i didnt measure the exact amount of raisins and chips and nuts I used, everything was by agaration. The recipe can yield quite a lot of cookies, thus I had to bake it in many batches. And when the last batch came out, wonderfully golden and crunchy(the best of the lot), I heaved a sigh of relief. But the work was not over.. Back to the viennese fingers, I melted 100g of dark chocolate containing 72% of cocoa solids with 30g of butter in the mircowave oven and coated the fingers with it. It was really messy and the final result was amaterish, but for a first timer, I thought it was pretty good. And of course the taste is simply amazing. It reminded me so much of the marks and spencer chocolate viennese biscuits that I adore. I loved how tender and soft it was, and the dark chocolate made it really chocolatey and sinful. I think that I would use milk chocolate or semi sweet chocolate the next time as the dark chocolate I used today was too bitter due to the high cocoa content and most people might not like it.

By the time I was done,the kitchen was full of the aroma of cookies, if only smells can be bottled..all the cookies turned out really awesome and crunchy and tasty. I like making mini cookies as that is the only way I can get it crunchy, I really wonder how people can make large cookies crunchy too. I normally avoid the large cookies as they turn out kind of tough and neither chewy nor crunchy. Hmm, guess I would stick with what I do best, and besides,its easier to give it out smaller cookies as well. I had better give out my cookies tomorrow before I finish everything by my self...heheh

Recipe for viennese fingers, taken from the baker who cooks:
Viennese Fingers
100g unsalted butter
1/3 cup icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1 and 1/2 tsps vanilla essence
1 cup plain flour
100g dark cooking chocolate, grated30g butter

Preheat oven to moderate 180 degrees celcius.
Grease baking tray and line with greased baking paper.Beat together butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add yolks and vanilla essence and beat well. Add flour and stir until all ingredients are combine and batter is smooth
Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with fluted 1cm piping nozzle. Pipe mixture into wavy lengths (approx. 6cm) on prepared tray.Bake for about 12 minutes or until lightly golden. Transfer biscuits on a wire rack to cool.Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl and dip half of each biscuit in the chocolate. Allow to set on greaseproof paper

COOOKIES!!! 

viennese fingers coated thickly in chocolate

Close up...

All packed in containers, ready to give out.=)

I went to Bakerzin today for Cindy and mine's birthday celebration. I have been meaning to try their special warm chocolate cake for quite so time. Its amazing that I have been there so many times and not tried, but I have always been more tempted by their array of delectable cakes more. So today, I resolved not to leave without trying.

We went to the one at raffles city, newly opened and very nice, with a zen like decor, perfect for chilling out after a long day. Our main course came pretty quickly..I ordered smoked salmon pasta with white wine cream sauce. It tasted pretty good, and I have always been a huge fan of cream based pasta. And the sauce was really flavourful and creamy and generous. The salmon, however, wasnt impressive and it was way too cooked to be called smoked, but on the whole, the dish was pretty good. I pinched some off cindy's Champignons a la creme, which is actually mushroom stew served in herb flavoured vol-au-vent, and it was delicious and the pasty was crispy and buttery and the mushroom really fragrant. And this is the mushroom linguine
The highlight, was, of course desserts..haha, after much debate, we finally settle for tiramisu and the warm chocolate cake. The tiramisu was really delicious and authentic cos it was really made with mascarpone cheese and marsala wine, just as it should be and finger sponge soaked with espresso and rum...ohhh..I so love it.

And the chocolate cake. The portion size was disappointingly small, given the price, and the icecream portion was miserably small as well, however, the taste was more than up to expectations. As soon as it was set on the table, and the first spoon dugged into it, and out oozed the molten chocolate, and everybody oohed and ahhed as we tried to scoop it up and also the ice cream which was melting rapidly. It was gone in a matter of minutes, as 4 of us attacked it with gusto. It was really really good, the ice-cream is home-made, which is a plus. And the cake was really fanatatic.

The next time I come again, I will try the tapas where you can choose from a variety of mini desserts like creme brulee, panna cotta and some other very interesting stuff.... The good thing is that the portion size is small and you can have a selection of 3,5 or 7 tapas. So the key word here is variety...

Whoa...I am so very very full now...

The talk of the town...Bakerzin signature dessert- chocolate cake served warm with homemade vanilla icecream, orange confit and berries 

Tiramisu...yummmy 

Cafe Mocha. The best I have ever had, with a lovely heart shaped topping.And its rich and creamy plus a good caffeine kick 

The Wonka family...I so love the chocolate mudslide with sludge centre 

My spoils from aussie from Steph =) 

I had something very interesting for dinner today. Alright, it cant really be considered a dinner, perhaps more suitable for lunch or tea, but hey, I am a unconventional person when it comes to eating. Give me any quirky combination, and as long as it taste good, I will like it.
Take a good look at it. Looks nice, does it not? Its not just a normal sandwich. Its actually peanut butter and banana sandwich,drizzled with a little honey. I so love peanut butter, I can actually eat it everyday without getting sick of it. And peanut butter and banana make an awesome combination. And its easy to make as well. I just buttered two slices of bread with peanut butter, added banana chunks on it, add honey, and toasted it for a few mins and I got a nice smelling, wonderfully tasty dinner. There is more....

Thinking whats the horrible looking black thing in the picture? Sorry for the lousy presentation, but it tastes so good that it makes up for everything else. I had a lot of banana left from making the sandwich and thus I just added some(make that lots) of the chocolate chips that I always keep in the fridge should the urge to bake cookies arise. Yup, so the thing in the picture is actually just banana chunks with chocolate chips and microwaved for about 1min. The banana is kinda soft and mushy and the chocolate has melted, though it still retains it shape in the picture. It makes a quick and satisfying dessert, good enough to satisfy my chocolate cravings. True to my word, I did not touch chocolate from friday till today...hahah..

Not a very healthy dinner, but oh well..I will just help myself to some soup that my mum cooked and also some of the meat inside. I love the meat leftover from cooking soup, which is so tender. Tasteless to some people, but with a little soy sauce, I think it tastes great.

I went to the chocolate buffet at the Fullerton Courtyard today, and man oh man, was it a totally out of the world experience for a chocolate aficionado like me. A sense of anticipation had built up in me before that, and when I got there, the sight of the lavish spread was enough to make me feel all excited. And good thing was that phototaking was allowed, so viewers can have a feast of the eyes. Coffee or tea was served, but heck, who wants coffee or tea when you can have chocolates? We got down to business immediately.

The first thing I saw was the multi-tiered, 1m high chocolate fountain, gushing down wonderfully smelling chocolate which looked so thick and delicious, and it was really good stuff, way better than the one at Max Brenner. There was a spread of strawberries, puff pastries, breadsticks,marshmellows and some other fruits. All you have got to do is to stick the food into the fountain and coat it. I had fun doing that and wished I could just take a cup of it and drink it..hahah...the only complain was the lack of bananas, after all, chocolate and bananas goes together like a dream, why on earth didnt they include it..my favourite is strawberry with chocolate. Unbelievably delicious. One thing is because they use whole, big and fresh, juicy and sweet strawberries instead of the miserable chopped up portions in other places, and I had no qualms about holding it under the gushing stream of chocolate, hoping for a thicker layer of coating, and I was not disappointed...ahhhh....blisss

The pastries table was filled with a wide assortment of pastries, too numerous to name. Each of them exquisitely made and beautifully presented, some with very weird names, but all of them very very good. Really good quality stuff. I would love to describe each of them individually, but there were really too many. My personal favourites(all of them??haha) were baileys white chocolate ivory soup,a rich and deliciously creamy drink, you can tell from the name what it consists of. I love Baileys, which is alcoholic Irish cream, though I couldnt really taste the baileys, I thought it was really yummy and sinful, with roasted almond bits on top

Another was the Fullerton cake,which was a rich, dark and super fudgy piece of cake with praline crunch and goodness knows what else. It was also my makeshift birthday cake.
There was even a drink station whereby bits of chocolate of different types were displayed and there was a chef there who would hit it in milk and make it into a hot chocolate. I was so excited and thought it was really cool, but I could not manage a second helping by then though I had initially wanted to try all. The chef,seeing my excitement chatted to me and shared that he was a chocolate lover as well because I thought that he would grow out of it after seeing and eating chocolates everyday, but apparently not. I think I was already high from all the chocolates then as i was chatting and laughing with him like an old friend.

I can't believe we stayed till 11,which was the closing time. 3 hours of chocolate, was a bit too much. And I felt so full after that. Dare I say that I am sick of chocolates, nah, I think its but a temporary thing. I would definitely be back again. More pictures below, enjoy..

The pan in the middle is for melting the chocolates..and there were different type of chocolates displayed, really spoilt for choices.. 

Strawberries again coated generously with chocolate 

Beautifully made chocolate piano...for display only... 

where to start first? hahah 

Clockwise from top: The ultimate chocolate cake, wonderfully tasting, just the kind of cake I like, with chocolate mousse, praline crunch, abit of sponge and the mysterious white strip in the middle added to the taste, could be either white chocolate or vanilla. Pods with cream and banana flambe, dark chocolate cake, white chocolate mango cheesecake, rum balls(chocolate with an explosion of rum filled truffle filling, really orgasmic, and tiramisu noir cafe. 

Pods with cream and banana flambe( i think). Whatever it was, I loved it, really out of this world.