Month: April 2019

These brownies are greeted with cries of delight anywhere I take them. They look dark and dangerous and taste amazing. Made with brown sugar and whole wheat flour though, you can almost imagine they are healthy. There is a little trick to making the chocolate top shine. One of my favourite recipes from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

This recipe is quick and fairly easy. The hardest part is leaving the brownies uncut overnight to let the flavour develop. I use a loose bottomed pan and line the pan with parchment paper. There’s a couple of methods for lining; the ‘approved’ collar method which you can see at this link or my super fast ‘loincloth’ method.

The loin cloth method can result in some brownie stuck in the corners but has the benefit of speed and simplicity. Basically, it’s two pieces of parchment that cross over. Cut two pieces of parchment; one slightly wider than the width and one slightly wider than the length. Each piece should be long enough to cover the bottom and come up the sides with extra roughly 3 times width (or length) of the bottom. Lay the ‘wide’ piece in first and crease the bit of overlap in the corners. Then do the ‘length’ piece, doing likewise with the bit of overlap in the corners. Not always perfect coverage but the brownies will still come out easily.

Ingredients

225 grams unsalted butter

425 grams light or dark brown sugar

65 grams Dutch process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon strong instant coffee granules

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 large eggs

170 grams whole wheat flour

350 grams chocolate chips – dark chocolate, semi sweet (for Americans traditional Nestle Toll House morsels) or milk chocolate if you’ve got a real sweet tooth

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 170C, 150C if you’re using a fan oven. If you have the option, don’t use the fan in the oven. These brownies do like a more gentle bake.
2. Line your pan or pans. The original recipe calls for 9″ by 13″ (23 cm by 33 cm). I prefer a square pan for this recipe and sometimes make a small square (15 cm by 15 cm) and a medium square (23 cm by 23 cm). If you don’t have exactly the right size pan, do some arithmetic. Here’s how to solve this equation: the area of pan (length times width) is 23 cm x 33 cm = 759 sq cms. My two smaller square pans: 15 x 15 = 225 sq cms and 23 x 23 = 529. 225 + 529 = 754 sq cms.
3. Place the butter in a microwave bowl. Melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar. Put the butter and sugar back in the microwave and heat it to the point of bubbling. I do this in 30 second bursts to keep in from making a big sticky mess in the microwave. Heating the butter and sugar this second time gives the top it’s beautiful shiny look.
4. Mix the coffee granules with a tiny bit of hot water to make a paste.
5. Add the coffee paste, cocoa, baking powder, salt and vanilla to the butter and sugar mixture. Whisk together and check the temperature with your finger. It should feel like hot bath water. If (improbably) it’s too hot, leave it for five minutes.
6. Combine the flour and the chocolate chips. Coating the chips in the flour helps to distribute them more evenly in the batter.
7. Whisk in the eggs, then add the flour and chocolate chip mixture. Stir well to combine, scraping up from the bottom of the bowl to make sure all the mixture is incorporated.
8. Put the batter in your pan or pans and place them in oven. Bake about 30 minutes until your cake tester gives you crumbs. The top should look set and start to crack.
9. Leave overnight if you can or at least until completely cooled.

Enjoy.

I don’t like beetroot, why do I keep trying to cook with it? I refuse to be defeated by a vegetable and a root vegetable at that. Also, I was traumatised by beets as a child. My parents believed that if they put food on a plate at supper time; we children should eat it. They tried various stratagems to get me to eat the beets.

Most of my generation will recognise these; ‘just one bite’, ‘how do you know you don’t like them’, ‘you’re going to sit here at the table until you eat those beets’, ‘I’m going to warm up the beetroot for every meal until you eat it’.

Basically, this was a running gun battle that happened most Thursday nights (Thursday menu was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, cole slaw and beets). I didn’t (don’t) eat meatloaf or beets and so battle was joined.

However, I’m an adult (allegedly) and I’m not going to let the beetroot win. Hence, my quest to find something that makes beetroot fun to eat.

Claire, one of the lovely dressers at Smartworks, found this recipe for me. And I think we’ve cracked it. I’ve made a few tweaks. The Davinator said ‘OMG, this is it, you have made beetroot taste amazing’. Even I like this soup.

It’s a relatively simple recipe but I suggest all the usual precautions when peeling, cutting and cooking with beetroot. Wear rubber gloves, don’t let the peeled beetroot touch anything that is porous or you can’t scrub with lots of hot water and strong soap.

One health warning – excessive consumption of beetroot is not recommended for those with a history of kidney stones or kidney disease.

Time to make soup.

Ingredients

1 – small onion

30 grams of butter

1 medium potato

2 medium parsnips

4 small or 2 large beetroots

800 mls of vegetable stock or other light stock

2 tablespoons of cooking brandy

Sour cream or full fat Greek yoghurt for serving

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a deep soup pot. The recipe makes enough for 6 starter size portions of soup. But you’re going to want the deep pot later.
2. Peel the potato, the parsnips and the beetroot. Cut into rough dice, about 2 cms. The smaller the dice, the quicker it cooks.
3. Rough chop the onion and add to the melted butter. Cook over a low heat until translucent.
4. Add the cooking brandy to the onions. Increase the heat to high and burn off the alcohol.
5. Add the stock to the pot. I actually use vegetable stock cubes and put them and the hot water directly in the pot. Bring to a boil.
6. Once the stock is boiling, add the potato, parsnips and beetroot. Cook at steady simmer until the vegetables are soft. Cooking time will depend on how small you have diced the vegetables. The quicker you can cook the beetroot the more purple your finished soup will be. Start checking after about 15 minutes. Mine took about 30 minutes.
7. Take out your trusty stick blender and puree the soup.
8. Put the soup in the serving bowls, add a big dollop of sour cream or yogurt and enjoy.