Saturday, June 01, 2002


the malgieri brownies are very good, by the time i got through fixing the recipe. . .

but they still lack the utter chocolate mouth-smash i'm looking for. yes, it's true dear readers, 8 oz. of valrhona manjari 64% is not enough. which is one of the things a close examination of the recipe brought to my mind. . .

the previous recipe by christopher kimball called for 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate. that's a clearly inadequate amount. the malgieri recipe calls for 8 oz. bittersweet, which means it actually might not have as much chocolate percentage-wise in the recipe as the mere 4 oz. but i was hoping the stronger, purer flavor of the valrhona would make up for that. . .

i also naturally used plugra for the butter. the recipe calls for 4 whole eggs. that much egg white could be drying in the recipe, which is one of the reasons why the recipe calls for a mix of dark brown and white sugar. the dark brown sugar not only imparts a nice dark color boost, but also offers great taste, and more moisture. i used india tree muscavado dark brown sugar, which had to be microwaved with a wet towel and then mashed with a fork to get all the lumps out -- it has that much damp molasses-y stuff in it. yum. but this also brought the question of whether the serious brown sugar might overpower some of the chocolate flavor.

dilemma. . .still, i went with it. i beat the eggs until they were thick and yellow with the wire whip in my stand mixer, adding the 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons neilsen-massey vanilla. with a happy heart i took out my 10-inch wusthof-trident chef's knife and chopped up the valrhona -- i just love seeing the big sans-serif letters stamped on the "bar." then i melted the chocolate and butter together in the microwave. i microwaved the brown sugar for 2 minutes, mashed it, measured out the white sugar, and sifted the flour. i added both sugars to the mixture and whipped away. in went the chocolate and butter! another brief whip, then i took some care folding in the flour by hand with a rubber spatula. nice batter. but what about that chocolate intensity?

since i always bake by weight, i used 5 oz. all-purpose flour, 8 oz. chocolate, 8 oz. brown sugar, 7 oz. white sugar -- and 6 oz. callebaut chocolate chips folded in at the last minute to deal with my nagging concerns! i can't say this is a 1-bowl recipe. as i poured the batter into the 13x9 pan lined with parchment paper that the recipe called for i could right away the pan was a tad too large. i might make this recipe in two 9-inch cake pans instead. . .or even fold up some foil to make a dam that reduced that 13 to 10. hmm. . .that would be an interesting experiment. . .of course changes in pan size affect baking time.

i could also see that with such a thin layer of batter 45 minutes would be too long to bake the brownies. i reduced the time to 30 minutes. i pulled the brownies out to see they had developed a beautiful, tender, thin and shiny sugar crust. a skewer in the middle came out clean. since i'm always annoyed that recipes rarely tell you when things are done the sane way -- by internal temperature -- i whipped out that handy taylor instant-read thermometer and took a quick reading. about 154 degrees was what i got. for what it's worth. . .

these brownies are supposed to sit overnight. no way in my house. mr. right was instantly on the prowl. i did get him to hold off for 3 hours. and the results are excellent -- slightly chewy, a light shiny sugar crust that gives to the tooth, and a dense fudgy center with sudden pockets of semi-liquid chocolatiness (from the chips). definitely edible, and miles above the kimball disaster.

still, i want brownies that are even more intensely chocolate. i may have to graduate from valrhona to cluizel's noir infini 99%. . .and maybe use 6 oz.? i might also back off on the brown sugar and switch to regular dark brown. well, another day, another batch. . .

posted by fortune | 6:12 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments