Saturday, May 25, 2002


now what was i saying about brownies?

long-time readers know i've been searching for months for the ultimate brownie recipe. i've seen fancy one from expensive food magazines that call for 3 kinds of chocolate. . . reprints from old 50s homemaker books. . . complex ones from famous pastry chefs. . .

what is the killer brownie? i'm a cake brownie fan, personally, but mr. right loves the classic chewy, fudgy brownies of his retro youth. they should have a firm -- but not hard -- shiny sugar crust, be thick but soft in the center, and have an intense chocolate taste. so i thought i'd found a good candidate here. christopher kimball is a well-known food guru, although i have to say i'm not fond of his writing style. lacks humor to my mind. but i won't hold that against him, if the recipe is good.

while the recipe is dead-simple to make, alas, it suffers several faults, to my mind. first, it has only 4 oz. of chocolate. now, it's true i didn't use the best valrhona for this. perhaps that would have made a difference, and i might in fairness make this again with the noir gastronomie. this would require some alteration of the recipe, so the first time i wanted to make it as the recipe was written.

the only 99% unsweetened i had lying around was a catering brand, icra. and 4 oz. of this stuff just doesn't give you that drop-dead intense chocolate flavor hit i seek. nowadays, we want desserts that look retro, but taste full modern, knockout rich. 4 oz. made me feel like i was standing in line with ration coupons somewhere. . .it's what alex rast would call a "depression special" recipe.

further, if you actually bake the brownies 60 minutes, as kimball suggests, you're gonna burn the edges. nasty. i certainly did, and i carefully lined my light-colored pan in baking parchment. finally, after you've waited that 2 hours to let the brownies set up, the top crust is glass-hard. you could rent it out for hockey. dentists probably paid kimball for this one. . .

so kimball's recipe is a no-go in my book. i'm still looking. . . readers, send me your brownie recipes! i might give this another try with valrhona, however; or i might plunge full out into the requires-an-m.o.f.-it's-that-complicated one from alice medrich that involves a bain marie. . .or, less intimidating, these by famed pastry chef nick malgieri. . .

mr. right was kind enough to deem them edible, but i thought they were just too sad. . .i'm almost mad enough to make another batch to malgieri's recipe on monday! 8 oz. chocolate: that's more like it. however, could 1 c. flour be enough????

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