Fudgy No-Butter Brownies

As you know from the previous post, there was nary a lick of butter in the house for weeks. With no time to visit the shops, I desperately scoured the all-knowing Net to look for baking recipes that required no butter. Lucky for me, I found a GOOD recipe. The brownies were delicious!

FUDGY NO-BUTTER BROWNIES

Adapted from Scientifically Sweet

300g Icing Sugar, sifted
56g Cocoa Powder, sifted
200g Ground Almonds
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
2 whole Eggs + 1 Egg White
2 tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

About 200g Semi-sweet or Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, divided

Preheat oven to 160 Celsius. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch baking tin with parchment paper, letting it hang over the sides of the tin.

Sift Icing Sugar and Cocoa Powder into a large mixing bowl. Add Ground Almonds and Sea Salt. Stir to combine. Add whole Eggs, Egg White, Milk and Vanilla Extract. Stir until smooth. The batter will be thick. Stir through some Chocolate Chips.

Scrape batter into the prepared baking tin, smooth the top and scatter over the remainder Chocolate Chips. Bake until a shiny crust forms and a skewer inserted into the center comes out with a few moist sticky bits, about 30 - 40 minutes.

Cool brownies completely in the baking tin before removing and cutting into squares.

Chocolate Rum Truffles

My first run in with these little babies (or I should say large babies) were at a bakery that opened in the Universiti Sains Malaysia where I did my undergraduate studies. 

The bakery was situated in a building which also housed the University sundry shop. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the building, as my memory of that time and place has become rather fuzzy over time. I do however, remember quite clearly that these babies were called Rum Balls! They were golf ball sized balls of dark chocolate cake tipsy with rum essence hiding plump black raisins rolled in chocolate rice sat in frilly white cupcake cases. 

I am calling them Chocolate Rum Truffles. You may call them faux Chocolate Rum Truffles if you prefer. Either way, these boozy little numbers are full of deep, dark chocolatey goodness made extra lovely by lashings of real rum. 

You will never guess how this got made. You see, I had actually made a tray of Alice Medrich's Cocoa Brownies - using the recipe below - to start with. As this brownie has a firm, chewy texture, I love cutting out shapes from it using my biscuit cutters. Then of course, I was left with the scraps. 

So here is what I did: I put the scraps in a large bowl. Using a fork, I mashed up the scraps. I then added about one to three tablespoons of dark rum into the brownie mash. Do not pour in too much rum. I rarely listen to my own advice about alcohol additions, but in this case I do. If you are lavish with the alcohol, you will end up with a sludgy mush that you cannot roll into balls. It will be the end of all your efforts. Mix it together. With clean hands, bring the mixture together into a ball. Pinch little bits of the mixture, roll into balls and roll the balls in chocolate rice. Place in a little paper case. Do the same until all the mixture is used up. Place all these little truffles in a container and keep chilled in the fridge. Wait about 2 hours before eating so the flavours have time to develop. They should be kept refrigerated, as the texture changes in ambient temperatures. They will keep for up to a week in the fridge (if they last that long).

ALICE MEDRICH'S COCOA BROWNIES

Adapted from The Wednesday Chef

140g Salted Butter

280g Caster Sugar

80g good quality dutch-processed Cocoa Powder

1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt

1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

2 Eggs

65g Plain Flour

Preheat the oven at about 130 Celsius. Line an 8' x 8' square baking tin with foil overhanging on the sides for easy lift after the brownies have baked and cooled.

In a heavy-based saucepan over low heat, melt the Butter. Remove pan from the stove.

Stir in Sugar, Cocoa, Salt and Vanilla. Mixture will look grainy. Check the sides of the pan. If it is warm to the touch and you can place your palm on the side, the Eggs are ready to go in. If not, let the mixture cool a little. 

Add the Eggs in one by one, beating vigorously after each addition. The mixture will come together to look smooth and glossy. Fold Flour in gently until it disappears into the mixture.

Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin. Smooth it out in the tin.

Bake at 150 Celsius until the top has a 'crackle' effect or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. About 25 - 30 minutes. 

Sip, sup & sigh

Alice Medrich's Robert's Brownies My Way

Some say chocolate heals, while others say it is tea that heals. I say both. Tea AND chocolate calms the soul like whispers of cool wind on hot skin. There's nothing better for you than to sip, sup and sigh away the blues. Tell the diet to go on a holiday way up in the mountains for a day or two, perhaps even a week. Once you've sipped, supped and sighed just enough, it can come home to join you once again as you plunge headlong back into life as it was.

Ooooops... almost all gone...

ROBERT'S BROWNIES MY WAY
Adapted from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies

56g Butter
310g semisweet 53% Callebaut Chocolate Baking Chips
130g Caster Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 large Eggs, cold
46g Plain Flour

• Preheat the oven to 140 Celsius. Line an 8 inch by 8 inch baking tin with foil hanging over the edges for easy lifting out of the brownies later. 
• Melt the Butter and Chocolate in a heavy-based saucepan on very low heat stirring all the time to prevent burning. Once the mixture is melted and smooth, remove from the heat.
• Stir in the Sugar, Salt and Vanilla. 
• Add in 1 Egg and stir until it is well incorporated. 
• Add in second Egg and mix in as above. 
• Stir in the Flour until it just disappears into the chocolate mixture. 
• Using a wooden spoon or spatula, beat the batter vigorously until the batter starts coming away from the sides of the pan. As the batter comes together it will become harder and harder to beat the mixture. Keep going until it comes away from the sides. Do not stop mixing until it does. 
• Scrape the batter into the prepared baking tin and bake for about 30 - 35 minutes at 150 Celsius or until a skewer poked through the centre comes away with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. 
• Cool on a rack. When completely cool place in the fridge to cool even more. Remove after a few hours and cut into pieces with a knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry for clean, neat slices. 

What about the tea then? Well, this is what I am drinking now. I love breathing in the heady perfume of Jasmine while sipping it hot. It's cleansing and comforting. 

Nigel Slater's Very Good Chocolate Brownies

I had lots of chocolate on hand, so armed with an article from the Guardian UK I tried Nigel's recipe for Very Good Chocolate Brownies.

The ingredients are the usual suspects which go into most brownies i.e. butter, sugar, chocolate, some cocoa, eggs and strangely baking powder. The method, however, is different. The recipe requires you to cream the butter and sugar till light fluffy first, then beat in the eggs followed by folding in of the chocolate and subsequently the dry ingredients. I added a dash of vanilla because that's what I like, though this is essentially supposed to be a no vanilla brownie.

The result? A really light crumbly brownie that melts on your tongue. There is no other way to describe it. While the flavour is spot on, I'm not sure I like the texture. My chocolate heart tells me that brownies should be denser and slightly chewy. Also too much work for such a simple delight. I'd be happier being able to whip a batch of brownies that required one to melt the butter, mix everything up in just one saucepan and be ready for the oven in 15 minutes flat.

Please follow the link for the full recipe of Nigel Slater's Very Good Chocolate Brownies. What I have written out here is a much abreviated version of it.

VERY GOOD CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

300g Caster Sugar

250g Butter, softened

250 Chocolate, of which 200g is to be melted and the remainder 50g chopped into pieces

3 Whole Eggs and 1 Egg Yolk, lightly beaten with fork

60g Plain Flour

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

60 Cocoa Powder

Dash of Vanilla

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius. Line a 10 inch x 10 inch square tin with foil. Set aside.

Cream Butter and Sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer still running add in the Egg bit by bit taking care that all the Egg mixture is well combined with the Butter and Sugar. Fold in melted Chocolate. Fold in Plain Flour, Baking and Cocoa Powders. Fold in Chocolate pieces.

Scrape mixture into prepared tin and bake for 20 - 30 minutes. At 20-minute mark, poke skewer through the middle. It should come out with slightly wet batter sticking to it. Remove from oven. If still very liquid, leave until the 30-minute mark and test again. It should not take more than 30 minutes to bake.

Leave to cool completely in tin before cutting into squares.  

Alice Medrich's Cocoa Brownies

The cocoa makes them quite dark and my poor photography skills didn't help either!

This was a fabulous recipe find. The last time I tried it, it was with castor sugar. This time round I chose to use light and dark brown sugar instead. It turned out less sweet and gooey than before with a defined bittersweet chocolate flavour but still as good. The Toad liked it and I was happy that this tweaked recipe wouldn't increase his blood sugar too much.

Alice Medrich's Cocoa Brownies

Adapted from Alice Medrich and The Wednesday Chef

140g butter

170g light brown sugar

80g dark brown sugar

80g good quality dutch-processed cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

65g plain flour

1. Preheat the oven at about 130 Celsius. Line an 8' x 8' square baking tin with foil overhanging on the sides for easy lift after the brownies have baked and cooled.
2. In a heavy-based saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Remove pan from the stove.
3. Stir in both sugars, cocoa, salt and vanilla. Mixture will look grainy.
4. Check the sides of the pan. If it's warm to the touch and you can place your palm on the side, the eggs are ready to go in.
5. Add eggs one by one, beating vigorously after each addition. The mixture will come together to look smooth and glossy.
6. Fold flour in gently until it disappears into the mixture.
7. Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin. Smoothen it out in the tin.
8. Bake at 155 Celsius until the top has a 'crackle' effect and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. About 25 - 30 minutes. 

Be careful not to overbake this or the brownies will taste and smell a little burnt. I've changed the method of mixing the brownies to suit my laziness and do it all in the one saucepan. I don't even bother sieving the flour. Sigh. Easy recipes with not too many ingredients and fantastic results are what I like. No slaving over the hot stove for me.

If you'd like to try out the original recipe, you can find it at The Wednesday Chef. Luisa Weiss has posted measurements both in cups and metric.

Oooops... I almost forgot to say that I got the flower and circular shapes, by simply cutting the brownies with pastry cutters. The texture of this brownie makes it easy to cut with the cutters. You'll have scraps to eat up though, which won't be pretty but will still be as delicious!

Aunty Lan's spectacular Toffee Almond Bars

I love anything with toffee or caramel in it. Recently, while surfing for 'toffee/caramel' recipes, I came across this super-easy recipe which uses a cake mix of all things!

Since I am the kind of girl - similar to Mary of Alpineberry - who always makes everything from scratch, I was sceptical about these Toffee Almond Bars. The problem is the picture on Mary's website looked so good that I couldn't stop myself from going to buy a cake mix just to try the recipe out.

How did it go?

Honestly, it took me three times to get this recipe right. I had to modify it here and there because the recipe on Mary's website just refused to work for me. The first couple of attempts came out mushy and soft like pudding. I had to throw both batches out as there was no way anyone could have eaten them.

I poured out my frustration to my dearest Aunty Lan and she told me 'Nevermind. Try again. You'll make spectacular Toffee Almonds Bars the next time.' I don't know if the third time was a charm or if Aunty Lan prayed very hard,  because I did get it right the third time.

I gobbled a few pieces at home and took the rest in to work for fear of overloading on the sugar. Oh my... they were good, and my boss JT agrees too!

Rain, rain go away

It's a dull and dreary morning here today. It all started last evening when the heavens poured their heart out, while Lightning and Thunder were having a mighty row overhead.

The rain was SO bad that I could barely see the road while driving home. I made it home in one piece and decided to warm myself (and the kitchen) up with some Toffee Bars.

Now, I have tried Toffee Almond Bars before, but that recipe used a cake mix base. As I prefer to bake from scratch, I wanted to try a recipe which called for mixing your own base. I also had 2 bags of Werther's Original Soft Cream Toffees and some macadamia nuts lying around.

I found a recipe and decided to adapt it to include the ingredients I had on hand.

As I am writing this, it's STILL raining here. In fact, it rained the whole night! I'm sure everyone's secret wish is that this was a Saturday morning and not Wednesday. It's the perfect day to snuggle in bed with warm blankets and a steaming hot cup of coffee or tea... plus a sweet treat or two.

MACADAMIA TOFFEE BARS

240g Butter, softened

180g light Brown Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

1 Egg Yolk

240g Plain Flour

200g Werther's Original Soft Cream Toffees

50g Heath Bits o' Brickle

100g Macadamia nuts, roughly chopped and toasted

Preheat oven at 160 Celsius. Spread chopped Macadamias on a baking sheet and toast for about 15 minutes. While the nuts are being toasted, beat Butter and Sugar until light and creamy. Mix in Egg Yolk and Vanilla Essence until well incorporated. Fold in the Flour gently. Resulting dough will be soft and a little sticky. Press into a 10' x 10' baking tray. Sprinkle on the Nuts, Toffee and Bits o' Brickle. Bake at 160 Celsius for about 30 minutes, until the base is cooked through and the toffee is bubbling. Remove from the oven and score into squares while still warm. Let it cool completely before eating.