Brownies Voilà

Brownies Voilà

Individual microwave Brownies!

Adapted from Spark by Blue Heron Kitchen

Here’s a single-serve brownie that you can eat straight from the microwave. If you’re craving a (emphasis: a) brownie, need a quick after-school snack or don't have the time or gumption to whip up a batch, this is a remarkable recipe that you're going to adore. Two minutes. That's it.

Heightened: plate it, powder it and adorn it with fruit. Impressive presentation and remarkable taste for a dessert that feels like you're playing with your EZ Bake Oven.

Take care to not over-bake zap these or they’ll turn into rubber.

I had best results with cocoa that wasn’t dutch processed. Scharfen Berger, Special Dark Hershey’s or Trader Joe’s are all good choices. If you use the fancier dutched stuff, it’ll taste great, only slightly less fudgy.

I don’t need to tell you how to eat a brownie or what to put in, over or around it. I tried making a gluten-free version, replacing flour with almond meal. It exploded in the microwave. I guess some some xanthan gum or flaxseed meal or chia seeds would work, but I’ll start with the glutinous version. After I finish cleaning my microwave, I'll experiment with some gluten-free flour.

macrowaves of peace and love,

jane

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
1/8 tsp. baking soda
a pinch of Kosher salt
1 ½ Tbsp. of low fat (I used Greek style) plain yogurt, (more, as needed to blend.)

1/8 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Procedure:

In a straight-sided microwave-proof coffee cup or ramekin (ungreased), mix all ingredients together well.

Place in microwave and cook on high for 1 to 1 minute, 10 seconds, until done but not rubbery.

Eat directly from mug/ramekin. Or release onto plate and garnish with a dusting of cocoa or confectioner's sugar, sliced mango or fresh berries, raspberry coulis, sorbet, ice cream or Bosco. 

N.B. – According to the “Spark Recipes” site, the caloric content of each of these is 94.5, fat is 1.1 gram, cholesterol: 0.9 mg., sodium: 224.6 mg., total carbs: 22.1 g, dietary fiber: 2.7 g and protein: 2.6 g

Chocolate Superstorm Globs

Updated by Blue Heron Kitchen

It’s hurricane season! Make these and have a batch in your freezer for this year’s Superstorm! They’ll last longer than ice cream, the nuts will supply you with protein and the chocolate, with much needed endorphins. You might want to double the recipe because you’ll wind up scarfing a batch down when you see your next LIPA/Con Ed/whatever your power company is bill. We’re paying the piper because we’ve missed the power boat. (Raise your hand if since “Sandy” you now own a solar powered, hand crank radio, an external charger, a better quality, more efficient lighting source … something.) But chocolate counts as alternative power source (do we get tax credit?),

Use excellent quality chocolate. It matters. Use any of these chocolates, and you’ll make any chocolate lover forever yours: Scharffenberger unsweetened chocolate, Valhrona semi-sweet, Guittard chips, Jacques Torres’ dark chocolate discs, chopped.

I have used both nuts, but you can stick to one. Always toast and cool your nuts before you bake. Toast them at 350º F. for about 6-8 minutes, until you can just smell them. Watch them carefully. If they burn, they’re toast. You can play around and try a combination of chopped chocolate, different nuts (the original recipe had walnuts and pecans) and even some dried fruit – try some dried cherries!

These globs freeze very well (until the lights go out). You can bake and freeze them between sheets of parchment or waxed paper (I love waxed paper) in plastic containers, tins or freezer bags. (For anyone with half a chocolate kupf, these are better frozen.)

peace, love and power up (or down),

jane

Ingredients:

5 oz. semisweet chocolate (Scharffenberger or another good quality chocolate)

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate (same as above)

4 oz. 83%, European style butter, at room temperature (Plugra brand is a good one)

¾ c. all-purpose, unbleached flour (King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill are good brands)

1 tsp. baking powder (I use Rumford)

1 tsp. kosher salt

2 eggs, size large, at room temperature

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract (I use Baldwin’s Vanilla)

1 Tbsp. instant espresso powder

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ c. semisweet chocolate ‘chips’ (pre-chipped or chopped by you)

1/3 c. toasted and skinned hazelnuts, chopped

1/3 c. chopped almonds (first, toasted and cooled)

Procedure:

Here is where the mis en place brings you great satisfaction.

Carefully measure out all of the ingredients for this recipe. You’ll just dump one thing in after another and this recipe will feel like you’re on one of those shows on the TV Food Network.

1.  Put the semi and unsweetened chocolates and butter in a stainless bowl, large enough to accommodate them and set it atop a barely simmering pot of hot water. Take care that NO steam or hot water meets the chocolate/butter mixture. Stir and melt. Remove and set aside to COOL. It is critical that you allow for the chocolate and butter mixture to cool sufficiently or else you will wind up cooking your eggs.

2.  Preheat oven to 325º F. and line 3 baking sheets or ½ size sheet pans or jellyroll pans with parchment paper. If you don’t have parchment paper (you should get some), grease the sheets with melted butter. Set aside.

3.  In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4.  Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs, vanilla and coffee powder until blended.

5.  Add granulated sugar and blend until thick. 1-2 minutes.

6.  Add the cooled , melted chocolate/butter mixture and blend another minute or two. Scrape down the bowl as necessary. (If you have a silicone beater blade, this won’t be necessary!)

7.  Add the flour mixture, mixing on low speed, until just incorporated. No more than that. Fold in the chocolate ‘chips’ and nuts by hand or with the mixer, on low speed.

8.  Drop the dough by rounded spoonfuls (I use a small measured scoop), leaving a couple of inches between, onto the prepared sheets.

9. Bake, rotating the sheets,  between the racks, turning them too, about 10-13 minutes, until they rise slightly and form a thin crust. Immediately remove the cookies from the sheets (you can leave them on the parchment) and cool on a rack.       

Yield: 24-36 cookies                      

Chocolate Soufflé Cake

Fallen Pound of Chocolate Soufflé Cake

(Flourless)

From David Waltuck’s “Staff Meals from Chanterelle”

Adapted by Blue Heron Kitchen

This cake is almost completely flour-free, save for dusting the pan with flour. If you don’t use wheat, choose an alternative to flour, such as matzo cake meal (next Passover), or some rice flour (if you’re Sephardic or you're allergic to wheat). 

I used flour.

This cake is about the easiest and most 'unassuming' flourless chocolate cake I’ve made. I like that. It approaches perfection. There's no flavoring other than chocolate and butter. So, make sure you use excellent chocolate (try Jacques Torres’ baking disks, Valrhona, Scharffen Berger, Guittard, or your favorite chocolate). You'll need a pound of chocolate! And then, there’s the butter situation. You'll be using half a pound of butter. I use European style butter – Plugra. Whatever butter you use, be sure that it’s fresh. Taste it. If you wouldn't spread it on toast, don’t use it. Nine eggs. Size large, room temperature, separated. Make sure that your whites are without yolks.

For an excellent cake, use excellent ingredients and an excellent technique.

Your excellent technique: Make sure that no steam enters your melting chocolate. Take care that the melted chocolate and butter cools to room temperature. Achieve ‘ribbons’ with the yolks. Don’t beat the whites past ‘soft peak’ or they’ll dry out too much. Fold, but don’t ‘mix’ to assure that the batter is ‘lifted’.  Bake in the center of the oven. DON’T OVERBAKE.

Follow these simple steps, and you’ll be a rock star, even though all you did was melt chocolate and butter and beat some eggs.

Here’s the recipe for one 9-inch cake:

Ingredients:

1 pound best quality semi-sweet to dark chocolate

½ pound (two sticks), unsalted butter (European 83% butterfat recommended)

9 large eggs, room temperature, separated

¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Cocoa powder (I use Scharffen Berger, Valrhona or Guittard), for dusting the cake

Confectioners’ "10X" sugar, for dusting the cake

Procedure:

1.    Preheat oven to 300º F. Lightly butter and flour (see above note regarding flour, if this is Passover, you can use matzo cake meal) a 9-inch springform pan, then line the bottom with parchment paper.

2.    Combine chocolate and butter in a bowl placed on top of a pot of barely simmering water. Melt, stirring occasionally. Be CAREFUL that NO STEAM enters the chocolate/butter mixture. When just about completely melted, remove bowl from the simmering pot and stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to room temperature. Don't rush. Bring it to room temperature.

3.    Combine egg yolks and ¾ cup of the sugar in the bowl of and electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix for about 4-5 minutes, until when the paddle is lifted, ribbons fall from the paddle.

4.    In another bowl (or, if you don’t have another bowl, transfer this mixture to a LARGE bowl and THOROUGHLY wash this bowl and attach the whisk to the electric mixer), whisk the egg whites with the 1 additional tablespoon of sugar until soft peaks are made when you lift the whites with the whisk. This should take about 3 or 4 minutes.

5.    Now you’re ready to fold!

6.    Fold 1/3 of the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg yolks. When fully incorporated, fold 1/3 of beaten egg whites, until fully incorporated. Repeat this procedure twice more, until you’ve completely folding all ingredients together, ending with the egg whites.

7.    Carefully pour the batter into the prepared springform pan. Don’t ‘pat it down’ much. Bake until the edges are firm and center is somewhat ‘puffy’, but still soft. The center will appear to be unbaked.  

8.    Cool on a rack, then release the springform.

9.    Dust with a layer of cocoa powder, followed by a layer of 10X (that’s industry talk for confectioner’s sugar), a second layer of cocoa and a final layer of 10X.

1.    Serve at room temperature. A thin slice will suffice (especially if there are 40 people at the table). You can serve ‘as is’, with a dollop of whipped cream, with some crème anglaise, or with a berry or two.

Chocolate "Gold Coast" Globs

After a foot of snow blanketed Colorado last week, shutting down businesses and schools and with the arrival of snow and sleet, accented by a few cracks of thunder in New York City today, I suggest: Soyez prêtes! ('Be prepared!'). 


In kitchenese: mis en place (pronounced: meeze ehn plahsuh) 


So, when it comes to the baking of these fantastic globs that fall somewhere between a brownie a cookie and a "chunky", the situation is that everything you're going to need is pre-measured and ready, like you had an imaginary apprentice doing all the dirty work while you were in make-up getting ready for the shoot.* 

*You can't tell me that you never forgot something like the sugar or,say, doubled the butter and not everything else (as I just did - I'm serious).


Stay warm and dry. Eat a little chocolate. And wherever you go, "soyez prêtes"! 

Chocolate “Gold Coast” Globs

Adapted from Judy Rosenberg’s Baking book by Blue Heron Kitchen

Here’s another great recipe that I’ve added a couple of my own twists to that originates from Judy Rosenberg’s All-Butter (etc.) Baking Book. I’ve learned from her publicist that she’s about to come out with a new book soon. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

It is CRITICAL that you allow for the chocolate and butter mixture to cool sufficiently or else you will wind up cooking your eggs.

Use excellent quality chocolate. It matters. I use Scharffen berger unsweetened chocolate and Jacques Torres’ dark chocolate discs, chopped, for my ‘chocolate chips’. These links are suggestions. You can purchase Scharffen berger chocolate in better stores, such as Fairway Markets and Jacques Torres has his own stores in NYC - in DUMBO, Chelsea Market and other locations too. Look for these products and discover your own chocolate treasures in your own necks of woods. Or go online and order through Amazon.

I have used both walnuts and pecans, but you can stick to one. If you love one and hate the other, knock yourself out. Today, I burned my walnuts, so my cookies had only pecans and they were pretty great.

Always toast and cool your nuts before you bake. Toast them at 350º F. for about 6-8 minutes, until you can just smell them. Watch them carefully. If they burn, they’re toast. You can play around and try a combination of chopped chocolate, nuts and even some dried fruit.

The globs freeze very well. So, if you’re starting to panic about Thanksgiving, you can bake these now and freeze them between sheets of parchment or wax paper (I love wax paper) in plastic containers, tins or freezer bags. (For anyone with a chocolate kupf, they’re stupid good frozen.)

Ingredients:

5 oz. semisweet chocolate (Scharffen berger or another good quality chocolate)

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate (same as above)

4 oz. 83%, European style butter, at room temperature (Plugra brand is a good one)

¾ c. all-purpose, unbleached flour (King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill are fine examples)

1 tsp. baking powder (I use Rumford - sans aluminum!)

½ - ¾ tsp. kosher salt (depending on how much salt you want with your chocolate)

2 eggs, size large, at room temperature

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract (I use Baldwin’s vanilla – always)

1 Tbsp. instant espresso powder

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ c. semisweet chocolate ‘chips’ (or chopped excellent quality, such as Jacques Torres discs)

1/3 c. chopped pecans (first, toasted and cooled)

1/3 c. chopped walnuts (first, toasted and cooled)

Procedure:

Here is where the mis en place brings you great satisfaction.

Carefully measure out all of the ingredients for this recipe.

You’ll just dump one thing in after another and this recipe will feel like you ripped off the box top of like, a box of Ghiradelli Ultimate Fudge Brownies.

1.                     Put the semi and unsweetened chocolates and butter in a stainless bowl, large enough to accommodate them; and set it atop a barely simmering pot of hot water. Take care that NO steam or hot water gets jiggy with the chocolate/butter mixture. Stir and melt. Remove to COOL.

2          Preheat oven to 325º F. and line 3 baking sheets or ½ size sheet pans or jelly roll pans with parchment paper. If you don’t have parchment paper (you should get some), grease the sheets with melted butter or brush them lightly with vegetable oil. Set aside.

3.         In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4.         Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs, vanilla and coffee powder until blended.

5.         Add granulated sugar and blend until thick. 1-2 minutes.

6.         Add the cooled , melted chocolate/butter mixture and blend another minute or two. Scrape down the bowl as necessary. (If you have a silicone beater blade, this won’t be necessary!)

7.         Add the flour mixture, mixing on low speed, until just incorporated. No more than that, please. Fold in the chocolate ‘chips’ and nuts by hand or with the mixer, on low speed.

8.         Drop the dough by rounded spoonfuls (I use a small measured scoop), leaving a couple of inches between, onto the prepared sheets.

9. Bake, rotating the sheets,  between the racks, turning them too, about 10-13 minutes, until they rise slightly and form a thin crust. Immediately remove the cookies from the sheets (you can leave them on the parchment) and cool on a rack.       

Yield: 24-36 cookies, depending on how globular you go