Brownies

I've had the urge now for a couple of weeks to bake some brownies, but never got round to it. In fact I wanted to make them for my co-workers in Duisburg and spread the love. Well now that I've baked them, on a Friday evening, there is no chance in hell that they are ever going to see them. Already half of them are gone, some to the neighbours (spreading love there) and the rest in our tummies AND the kids are not even at home!!

There is a bit of a dilemma in my mind about sharing this recipe. Mainly because it's from my Spago recipe book. I've changed it to suit my tastes and converted it to metric units, but does that make it my own recipe? Neither Spago nor Wolfgang Puck has posted the recipe on-line, other people have, but does that make it okay? Copyright is such a complicated thing, especially with recipes. How much do I have to change to call it my own??

Preparation time: 90 minutes ; makes (15 large) pieces  

Ingredients:

350 g	Bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
225 g	Butter, unsalted
1 tsp.	Instant coffee
200 g	Flour
1 tsp.	Baking powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt (leave it out if you can only get salted butter)
4	Eggs, large
400 g	Sugar

Method:

Although the ingredients call for bittersweet chocolate you can use any other type. If you can't get cooking chocolate and want to use regular stuff just make sure you reduce the amount of sugar you put in. You might also want to increase the amount of chocolate!

For this recipe you need to use something called a "bane-marie". Most of us don't have one of these sitting around at home and I would not advise you to go out and buy one! You can use regular kitchen stuff. Basically what it is is a a bowl within a bowl. The inner bowl has water in it and thus distributes the heat evenly to the upper bowl. This is crucial when you have to heat something evenly.

The first thing you need to do is find something in your kitchen that works for you. I use either a Pyrex (with a lip for chocolate) or a metal bowl and a saucepan that the bottom of the bowl fits into but that the whole bowl cannot fall into. In this recipe you need two medium sized bowls.

Put your chocolate, butter and instant coffee into a bowl with a lip. The reason I recommend a lip is because then the evaporating water which condenses on the top of the bowl cannot drip down into the chocolate. Don't forget, if you get even a drop of water in your chocolate it will seize and you'll have to start again. It is a real shame if you have to set aside 350 g of chocolate (I say "set aside" because you can use it in other baking projects, for example, it still works well in cake recipes).  Fill your saucepan with around 4 inches of water (the bottom of your bowl should not touch the water) and bring it to simmer. Place a wooden spoon in the water and then the bowl with the chocolate on top. I put the spoon in there to stop excess steam from building up in the pan. I am rather scared that I might burn myself on the steam. This way the steam always comes out from one side, and I know which side it is. Don't use a metal spoon for this, the water will condense and run into your chocolate (been there, done that)!

Allow the chocolate to melt. Do not stir to often. While your chocolate and butter are doing their thing you can measure out the rest of the ingredients and get another bowl ready with the eggs and sugar. The same method will be used as with the chocolate. Give your chocolate a stir once the bottom has melted. I use a chopstick for this, wooden! And allow it to continue melting. If your water is boiling reduce the heat. You only want it to simmer.

Around about now is the time to put on the oven 160 C in a fan over/180 C regular/350 F.

If you want really thick brownies prepare a 8" by 8" pan. They will take forever to bake so you can add on another half an hour to the preparation time above. I use a quarter tray (13" by 9") for my brownies, which considerably reduces the baking time, saving on energy and allowing for smaller portions. Line the tray with parchment paper so that the cooked brownies are easy to remove from the tray.

Easily removable if you use parchment paper

By now your chocolate is probably melted. Stir it well to incorporate the butter. If there are still a few bumps don't worry take it out of the saucepan and set it somewhere. Go back to it later and give it another stir, that will probably get rid of all the bumps. But if it doesn't don't worry too much, no one ever complained of a lump of chocolate in their brownie, right?

If you need to fill more water into the saucepan do so and bring the water back to simmering. Place the bowl with your eggs and sugar into/onto it. With an electric hand mixer beat the eggs and sugar. Beat it until the sugar dissolves.

To tell that it dissolved stick your finger into the mousse and rub it onto another finger. If there are still sugar crystals you will feel them (lick your finger clean!). By the time your sugar is dissolved you will have a pale yellow looking mousse. Take this off the fire (some things are best described the Sri Lankan way!) and add the chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated.

It's not well incorporated here, just looks pretty!

You will notice that your mousse deflates, this is okay. Then add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix in with a spatula until well incorporated.

Fill this into your prepared tray, pop it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. You can tell that it is done by sticking in a knife. If it does not have soggy stuff on it when you take it out, it is done. Note that it may have crumbs sticking to it. Some people like their brownies soggy, if you are one of these people don't bake it for so long. Brownies are much like chocolate chip cookies and will get hard once they cool down. A typical beginner mistake is to keep baking them until they are hard. If you do this then your brownies will be super hard by the time you get round to eating them. Resist the urge to over bake. My guess is that the sugar and chocolate get hard as the brownie cools down.

Allow your brownies to cool, cut them to the desired size, and then enjoy them (although we enjoyed our straight out of the oven with a cup of Dilmah).