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Fudge Brownie

August 8, 2012 in Baked Treats, Desserts

Lip Smacking, Chocolatey, Fudge Brownies

I doubt there are many chocolate non-lovers out there and even if there are, I doubt there are many who can resist a delicious and perfectly textured brownie. I love brownies and if there is another person who is blindly in love with them, it has to be Amit. So attempting to bake brownies is a tall order to reach, cos I know Amit is going to be judging it against the best he has had. So somehow I never actually tried to bake these before. But this week since he flew all the way from Memphis to be with me in Tempe for a week, I decided that I will attempt baking brownies at home. Thankfully the attempt was a complete success and it takes about 15 mins to prepare the dough and about 25-30 mins to bake the brownies.

I followed the recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. The recipe has got hundreds of excellent reviews. The original recipe can be found at the link http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/fudge-brownies-recipe.

Ingredients:

Servings: 9

  1. 2 large eggs
  2. 1/2 tsp baking powder
  3. 1/2 tsp salt
  4. 1/2 tsp espresso powder
  5. 1/2 + 1/8 cup cocoa (I used Ghirardelli cocoa)
  6. 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
  7. 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  8. 1 cup + 1/8 cup sugar
  9. 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  10. 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

  • Preheat the oven to 350F.
  • Beat the eggs, baking powder, salt, espresso powder, cocoa and vanilla essence till smooth.
  • Next melt the butter in a microwaveable bowl. Now add the sugar to the bowl and continue to heat the butter sugar mixture till most of the sugar has melted.
  • Now add this mixture to the cocoa mixture and beat till it forms a smooth mixture.
  • Now add the flour to the mixture and mix till it forms a smooth batter. Add the chocolate chips and mix it together till the chips are evenly distributed.
  • Now spoon the batter into a lightly greased 8″ x 8″ square pan.
  • Bake the brownies in the oven for 25-30 mins or till a cake tester comes out clean in the center of the pan.

After a very long time, Amit is home to actually try the dish and tell me if it is bloggable or not… And this brownie gets his approval!!! :) Hope you enjoy this as much as we did. It is a brilliant browny, just cakey enough, just chewy and just crumbly enough. It has the perfect shiny top which is due to the third step of heating the butter and sugar mixture. Do let me know if you try this recipe and thank you for reading my blog…

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Caramelized Banana with Chocolate Orange sauce

February 8, 2011 in Desserts

Whoa, now that’s an interesting trio!!!

I have to mention this before I go ahead and continue with the post. The pictures do absolutely no justice to the dessert. The three flavors come together really well. And it’s a pretty guilt-free recipe. Just a few teaspoons of cream, and lots of fruits. So how did I come up with the recipe… Well a friend of ours gave us a huge bag full of hand picked oranges. There were so many of them, and I was starting to get worried that Amit is going to get a Vitamin C overdose. He was peeling one orange after another and polishing them off. And I had some leftover chocolate bars from the chocolate mousse I made last time. And well, the only way I ever eat bananas are if they are broiled and caramelized. So here’s the recipe for the amazingly delicious and heavenly Caramelized Banana with Chocolate Orange sauce. And you could make the sauce and use it for other desserts. I found the chocolate orange sauce recipe at a website. The link for the sauce recipe is given at the end of this post. I did make a couple of changes to make it less guilty.

Ingredients:

  1. 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate (chopped)
  2. 1/4 cup whipping cream
  3. 1/2 cup 2% milk
  4. Rind from half an orange
  5. 1 cup fresh orange juice
  6. 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  7. 5 teaspoons granulated sugar
  8. 2 bananas (sliced lengthwise and cut into 4 pieces)
  9. 2 Tbsp brown sugar for each banana
  10. 1 tbsp triple sec for each banana
  11. 1 teaspoon butter for each banana

Directions:

For the Chocolate Orange Sauce

  • Put the chopped chocolate in a large enough bowl.
  • Pour the cream, milk and the orange rind in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
  • Remove the saucepan from the heat and cover the saucepan with plastic wrap. And leave it aside for 30 minutes.
  • Heat the orange juice and sugar on a low flame till the quantity reduces to half the initial quantity. Once the orange juice is reduced to half a cup remove and set aside.
  • Once 30 minutes have passed, bring the milk, cream and orange rind to a simmer once again and add the reduced orange juice to it. Let the mixture simmer for a minute. (if you do not like the orange rind in the sauce, you can strain this mixture before adding it to the chocolate.)
  • Next add this mixture to the chocolate pieces and once the chocolate pieces melt, blend the mixture using a hand mixer.
  • This sauce can be stored for upto a month in the refrigerator.

For the Caramelized Banana

  • Preheat the oven on the broiler setting to 500 F.
  • Melt the butter and mix the triple sec with it (amounts depending on the number of bananas you want to use).
  • Spread the mixture on both sides of the banana.
  • Now place the bananas on a baking dish and sprinkle some of the brown sugar on the top side.
  • Now place the baking dish in the oven and broil the bananas.
  • After about 5 minutes or when the bananas have caramelized on one side, turn the bananas over and sprinkle the rest of the brown sugar on the other side.
  • Again let this side brown in the broiler for about 5 minutes.
  • Remove the banana slices from under the broiler and place it on a plate.
  • Next pour the chocolate orange sauce over the bananas and serve warm.

We loved this dessert. The orange flavor lightened the chocolate sauce.The small amount of cream makes it a less guilty version of the original recipe. The bananas, orange and chocolate flavors come together very well in this melt in your mouth dessert. It is also a very quick and easy to put together recipe and requires no exotic ingredients. But this is an awesome and very exotic tasting recipe. We loved it and I hope you do too. Enjoy!

And here’s the link to the recipe for chocolate orange sauce http://www.recchiuti.com/recipe_detail.html?recipe=11.

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Chocolate Mousse & Raspberry Cream Entremet

January 30, 2011 in Desserts

Another layered dessert in the making!!!

The number of hits on my blog crossed the 1500 mark today… I must thank all my readers for that. And because you have been so encouraging, I decided to write up the entremet recipe up sooner than I would have otherwise. It seems apt that I write up a dessert recipe to celebrate the occasion. So as an extension to this month’s daring bakers challenge, here are the recipes to create the layers in the entremet; the chocolate mousse and the raspberry cream.

I was looking for a Julia Child Chocolate Mousse recipe and since I do not have the cookbook, I had to resort to searching for an adaptation of it on someone’s blog. I have listed the link at the end of this blog. David Lebovitz had the perfect recipe put together with some awesome pictures which gave me the impetus to try out his adaptation of the Julia Child Chocolate Mousse recipe. The end result had both the decadent taste and perfect texture. Both the chocolate mousse and the raspberry cream come together very well. The flavors are a perfect pairing. This recipe makes about 6-8 servings.

Ingredients for Chocolate Mousse:

  1. 6 ounces semisweet chocolate (broken into big chunks)
  2. 6 ounces unsalted butter (softened)
  3. 1/4 cup brewed coffee
  4. 4 large eggs, separated
  5. 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
  6. 2 tablespoons dark rum
  7. 1 tablespoon water
  8. pinch of salt
  9. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  10. large bowl of ice water

Directions:

  • Use a double boiler. Fill the saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. In the other bowl set on top of it, melt the chocolate and butter. Once this is melted add the brewed coffee. Once the mixture is a smooth paste, remove the melted chocolate, butter and coffee from the double boiler.
  • Set another bowl above the boiling water and whisk the egg yolks with 2/3 cup sugar, rum and water until the mixture is thick. (I used a handheld mixer for this)
  • Remove the mixture from the double boiler and put it inside a bigger bowl of ice water. Now continue beating the mixture till it is cool and thick.
  • Then add the chocolate, coffee, butter mixture to the whisked eggs yolks.
  • Beat the egg whites and the pinch of salt in a clean bowl. Whip until the eggs are firm and holds peaks.
  • Add the tablespoon of sugar to the egg whites and continue beating the mixture till it forms shiny peaks. (Make sure it is not too firm)
  • Now add the vanilla extract and mix it completely.
  • Fold in the egg whites (1/3rd of it at a time into the chocolate mixture). Do not overmix, just make sure that the egg whites are completely incorporated.
  • Place the chocolate mousse in the refrigerator till the mousse has firmed.

 

Ingredients for Raspberry Cream:

  1. 6 oz fresh raspberries
  2. 2 cups water
  3. 1/2 cup sugar
  4. 1 cup heavy cream
  5. 1.5 teaspoon unflavored gelatin

Directions:

  • Add the raspberries, sugar and water to a saucepan on a medium flame.
  • Bring the mixture to a boil then let it simmer till the mixture reduces to 2/3 of the initial amount.
  • In the meanwhile dissolve the gelatin in 1/4 cup of the raspberry mixture. Once the gelatin has dissolved completely, transfer the 1/4 cup back to the raspberry mixture.
  • Set the raspberry sauce aside.
  • In the meanwhile whip the cream till it forms firm peaks.
  • Fold the cream into the raspberry sauce till is completely incorporated.
  • Let the raspberry cream set in the refrigerator for about 4-6 hours or till firm.

Directions for assembling the dessert:

  • Once the Chocolate Mousse and Raspberry cream set, you can start serving the dessert into bowls or inside the biscuit joconde imprime.
  • I used layers of the joconde imprime, ground chocolate graham crackers, chocolate mousse, ground chocolate wafers & raspberry cream. I topped it off with some whipped cream and raspberries.
  • Chill this for an hour or two before serving.

This is definitely a high calorie dessert but you are allowed to indulge once in a while. The link for the chocolate mousse recipe is http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/05/perfect-chocola/. This can be made a day in advance and ready to serve for a party. You can thereby save yourself some time on the day of the party. I assure you that you will love this recipe. Raspberries and chocolate flavors come together very well along with the graham crackers and the chocolate wafers.

And cheers to all my blog readers, thank you for all the encouragement and I hope to be able to get you to continue visiting my blog in the future too.

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Milk Chocolate Panna Cotta

October 5, 2010 in Desserts, Recipes

Panna Cotta or Mousse, who cares, it’s yummmmm

A few weeks back I accompanied a friend while she went on her wedding dress shopping. It was an exhausting evening for her what with all the dresses she got in and out of. So we decided to get some dinner before we headed back home. And we landed up at Macaroni Grill. The side of bread and the entrees we ordered there were awesome. We then debated on whether or not to order a dessert and then we ended up ordering one each. I ordered the Panna Cotta with fresh Berries and it was definitely one of the BEST DESSERTS I have ever eaten at a restaurant.

Ever since I have been thinking of and contemplating making Panna Cotta at home. Then a couple of weeks back when I went to the store to pick up the ingredients for the Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup with fresh basil, I picked up the ingredients to make some Panna Cotta at home.

I think this would be an appropriate place to mention a blog I really love. I have made a few of the dishes following the recipes on the blog and they turned out to be amazingly good. The blog is http://www.passionateaboutbaking.com/ and I have adapted my panna cotta recipe from there.

The ingredients listed below serves 6-8 persons.

Ingredients:

  1. 3 cups whipping cream
  2. 3 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
  3. 5 tablespoons granulated sugar
  4. 3 tablespoons cocoa powder (I used Nestle hot chocolate powder)
  5. 200-250 grams milk chocolate chips

Directions:

  • Measure 3/4 cup of the whipping cream. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cream and set aside.
  • Mix the sugar and cocoa powder in a sauce pan and add the 2 1/4 cups of whipping cream.
  • Heat the mixture over medium heat to a simmer.
  • Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the chocolate chips and stir to dissolve the chips.
  • Heat the saucepan on a low flame to dissolve the chocolate to a smooth consistency.
  • Add the softened gelatin and cream mixture to the saucepan and make sure the heat is on low as you do not want to heat the mixture to a simmer.
  • Once the gelatin has completely dissolved remove the saucepan from the heat. Use a fine strainer and strain the mixture into a big bowl.
  • Transfer the Panna Cotta into smaller individual serving bowls.
  • Leave the Panna Cotta in the refrigerator for 3 hours or till it sets. (I left it in the refrigerator overnight)

The entire recipe from prep to refrigerating takes about 15-20 minutes. This wasn’t like the Panna Cotta I ate at Macaroni Grill but it was absolutely delicious. But I must warn you this is not for the health conscious foodie. This is one of those sins you allow yourself to indulge in once in a long long while.

The original recipe can be found at http://www.passionateaboutbaking.com/2008/04/dark-chocolate-panna-cotta-its-all-about-the-kidz-in-us.html. I adapted it based on some of  the ingredients I already had at home. I replaced the dark chocolate with milk chocolate and instead of using authentic cocoa powder, I used the hot chocolate powder.

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