I’d like to dedicate this recipe to my puppy Celeste!
I’m quite picky whenever it comes to things like cookies or pastries. If it’s not mind-blowingly good, I probably won’t take a second bite. I’m horrible and snooty like that, and it’s one part of myself which is quite hard to change (tragedies). These were an absolute breeze to bake, firstly because the aesthetics of the whole method was ridiculously enticing, and secondly because you don’t need any schmancy kitchen equipment. Double whammy dear.
As you can see, these still have a bit of lift to them, but they did sink after a while as the ones shown were still warm from the oven’s belly.
Key points:
-Use crumbling, DARK brown sugar with a high percentage of molasses.
-Don’t use just baking powder; either use both powder and soda or just soda on its own. The ones here were made with just baking soda, but I think I’ll use a little of both the next time, for extra chewiness.
– If you have shortening and use it instead of butter, add extra salt to help give the flavour a boost.
– Watch those cookies. Any extra time and they’ll lose that golden density and chewiness. Once you observe a slight brown edge and almost-set middle, take them out. In this recipe, it takes about 15 minutes, for extra, extra large cookies. So if you’re looking for bite-sized ones, 8 minutes or so should do it. Then again, it all depends on the surrounding temperature and that of your oven. Did I mention this is a beautiful science.
Monster-large, with a ridged top. I think a little undercooked in the centre is just fine, yes?
Preheat the oven to 165 degrees C (325 degrees F). Line three cookie sheets with parchment paper or grease them (if you don’t have three just use two first, then replace after the first batch).
Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
In another medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended, or just use a wooden spoon. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy.
Mix in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough using a heaping tablespoon measure OR a quarter cup measurement at a time onto the cookie sheets. They should be about 3 inches apart. Yes. They’ll be huge. The batter will also be very soft and lightly sticky, especially if you live in the same damned sun-stricken place as me!
Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges are lightly toasted and have a medium brown hue. Cool on baking sheets on a wire rack completely before removing.
‘Life has taught me that 95% of people are always wrong.”
That actually deserved its own bullet point. Don’t know where that’s from? Go have a little Internet peek. In fact no, scrap that, there’s really no need. What good will that do? Sometimes things are best appreciated without knowledge of every minute detail, with every painful little aspect fixed and screwed down in front of you. Analysis is one way of dealing with life, and then there’s a vague, casual, breezy bliss.
You’re probably wondering where all this is going.
I’m talking about brownies, friend. Brownies.
Baking is an art which requires painstaking precision and by-the-book loyalty. There are typically a few tweaks here and there, as most of my fellow baking friends would agree whenever it comes to tackling recipes made by different people from different parts of the world. Thing’s like surrounding temperature and ingredient quality/origin and oven tolerance all varies from place to place, from country to country. I tried making a Nigella meringue once with my mother and realised only at the very end that no, our 40 degree weather was not the same as ‘room temperature’ in South London (we worked something out in the end). All in all, the ratio’s got to be right down pat.
Um.
Yes, brownies. I looked into my pantry and heard myself physically sigh as I realised there was no more dark, treacly muscovado sugar left. Can’t treat anyone or myself to dense, chewy, fudgy goodness anymore, I assumed. But just as how 95% of people are usually wrong, so was I. Wow, I can’t discount myself from anything anymore.
I stumbled across this recipe online, entitled ‘Robert’s Absolute Best Brownie Recipe’. You’re most likely not a human if you are not tempted by this alluring title, and really, who doesn’t indulge in some excessive link clicking. It looked too good to be true. I remember the first time I tried it I didn’t follow the instructions perfectly. Since there is so little flour (quarter cup only) in a whole batch, I turned up my nose and added more.
And more.
But there’s a science to this, and after my first try, I realised I was quite foolish. Childish even, for not being able to wait. The next attempt yielded something quite magical. And you have to be the one to try it before you can come close to understanding what exactly I mean. I think I should just get on with it.
~
INGREDIENTS
6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted or salted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for the pan
8 ounces (228g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
2. Line an 8 or 9-inch square pan with 2 long lengths of aluminum foil or parchment paper, positioning the sheets perpendicular to one other and allowing the excess to extend beyond the edges of the pan. Lightly butter the foil or parchment.
3. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the chocolate and stir by hand until it is melted and smooth.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla until combined. Beat in the eggs by hand, 1 at a time. Add the flour and stir energetically for 1 full minute—time yourself—until the batter loses its graininess, becomes smooth and glossy, and pulls away a bit from the sides of the saucepan. [Editor’s Note: There are two crucial elements in the making of these brownies. One is throwing yourself into the making of them by stirring them “energetically,” as the recipe stipulates. The second, also spelled out in the recipe, is making certain you stir the batter thusly for a full minute. It may appear to separate a few seconds into stirring, and it may appear grainy midway through, but when you stir with vigor for a full 60 seconds–and we do mean a full 60 seconds, along the lines of “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…”–you’ll end up with a batter that’s rich, thick, satiny smooth, and glossy as can be. Therein lies the difference between dry, crumbly brownies and the world’s best brownies.]
5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the center feels almost set, about 25 minutes.
6. Let cool completely before cutting.
I adjusted the amount of sugar and removed all the additional nutty additions just to present the purity of the batter on its own. And see the bolded clause? That right there is the most important part. Get it wrong and the entire thing will crumble before your eyes. These things are depressing, so just follow and be honest with the timing. What you’re looking for is for the batter to suddenly pull away from the sides, yielding a glossy chocolate pool, almost gurgling and bubbling with stick and bick, rich and thickly dripping.
This is a base batter, so go ahead and add whatever you like before thrusting it in the oven, be it nuts, marshmallows, berries, cream cheese, or hell’s bells, more chocolate. The intense stirring time might vary actually, from 1 to a full 5 minutes. Mine took a full 5, whilst the other time I’m sure it took much shorter. My biceps were fit to look part of a rock crag. Though after sufficient bicep rest, I took these babies out of their scorching hell and let them rest, like a sighing thing, settling down, fudgy bellies swelling.
Don’t give me a plain brownie when you know the rainbow variations it is obliged to take on any time of the day, month, year… yes go on, go on.
So I was eating Strawberry Haagen Dazs in my room and well, you know those bits of frozen strawberry? Yes well, I can’t resist them. Wait a minute. Strawberries. Jam. Baking urge. I needed to comprehend my own absurd wants whilst being weighed down by post-school exhaustion.
I saw this recipe for brownies swirled and glistening with raspberry jam and decided to put a mini itty bitty wicky butty twist on it.
Cinnamon and nutmeg and a little cream. Oh and add a touch of textured, clunky marmalade from the orange Gods. Those were all the changes and that was it. But I want to revel in the pure divinity that is therapeutic baking on a Tuesday afternoon after school, with a history essay on cue and Hitler parading his lovely square mustache on the side, hands up, chest out and all. The tiredness was overwhelming, my lids needed a break from being opened up to the world.
I had to bake. I needed to bake. I needed to feel the flushed rigour of precision and sweet chemistry (yes, this is very very literal.)
So. Here’s what the English call a recipe.
What you need for these diddlyumptious cuboids (or cubes, whatever works for the geometrical purists):
– 150g 70% dark chocolate
– 115g unsalted butter, in chunks
– 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
– half cup white sugar
– half cup brown sugar
– 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
– 1 tablespoon double cream
– 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract (not essence, no no)
– 2 eggs and 1 yolk
– 3/4 cup plain white flour
– half teaspoon salt
– 16 teaspoons of raspberry/blueberry/ whateverfloatsyourboat jam, or a fruit-and-sugar compote which you don’t mind atop pancakes or waffles. Though more on the thick and glutinous side. Now I’m not saying to physically and painstakingly measure out 16 teaspoons beforehand. Oh please don’t die in the kitchen. You can do this after the batter is made, when you drop 16 teaspoons of jam in little 4×4 rows on top. Plain and simple and no dying.
I love baking brownies. I really do. And talk about a one-bowl job.
What to actually do for these diddlyumptious brownies:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, and grease plus line a square 8-inch baking tin.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter over a bain-marie, which is really just a fancy way of saying dump the globs of black and yellow into a heatproof bowl and melt over simmering (not boiling) water.
3. Remove from heat and whisk in both sugars and cocoa powder.
4. Mix in eggs and yolk, vanilla extract and cream.
5. With a spatula or wooden spoon, add flour, salt and cinnamon. Mix until well combined and take a minute to gape at the gloopy, glossy consistency.
6. Pour into pan and drool a little more. Have any of you watched the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? The introduction is practically dedicated to chocolate porn in all its pours and drop layerings. Pretty spectacular. That Wonka was quite something.
7. With a piping bag or teaspoon (despite the desire for excruciating perfection, I still reverted to the latter), put 16 dollops of jam on top of the batter.
8. With a knife, PLAY. Swirl it around and about the batter until you get what should resemble decadent, ornate swirls fit to look part of King Henry’s grand staircase. It may look unkindly messy at this point, but don’t give up hope. The swirls show up in the most gorgeous manner possible in the oven after the batter lightens and gains crusts and steeps and crevices in all the right places.
9. Bake for 25 minutes on the dot. No more and no less. Well, unless you have a peculiar oven of course. In that case you have a little more flexibility with time. It’s typically 25-27 minutes. There I offered some room.
I was satisfied and I was done, and I went up to my room to watch Daniel Craig in The Trench for some bloody ear shots and spilling guts. Chocolate Fingers smiled up at me.
Basically I have this problem. And no, I’m not talking about my pathetic sense of direction or the fact that I cannot walk in a straight line.
And this problem has manifested itself slowly and silently throughout my teenage years.
The problem is that I hardly ever go out to tea. And yet such a sophisticated English Rose occasion is crazily ubiquitous; millions of the common folk go out to experience this pinkies-up-whilst-drinking-earl-grey phenomenon. Yes, even here in the not-so-quaint Singapore. I remember going out for pain au chocolats with the maman and sister in Kensington, London, back when I used to live there. I’d hop onto a buggyboard at the back of my sister’s pram and we’d all stride along the leaf-littered streets just to chance upon a myriad of cafes, offering the tempting smells and charming, traditional sights. I cautiously sipped my mother’s cappuccino and crinkled my nose, not understanding the power of such a drug which I would only come to know of many, many years later. It’s rather nice to think about how many years I’ve lived, for it makes me reminisce and ponder and yet sadly, feel remorseful over. Everything there was sweetly carved in white brick and rustic wood, as if no other material would live up to the quintessential English Rose cafe. Even here, there are so many little quaint bistros, cafes and specialty dessert places which allow one the privilege to live the life of an uptown aristocrat from the 16th century. Perhaps not as aesthetically pleasing, but delightful all the same. Delightful.
Just an hour or two, but that’s really enough. The chance to sip tea and dig into petite cakes and souffles with a couple good friends was beyond what I consider to be privileged. Just a note: this all happened after Ruru and I managed to actually find the place.
The Pier?
Yes. The Pier!
Where on earth is that!
Somewhere on Mohamed Sultan Road. But I swear I can’t see it. I swear I swear.
Google Maps is utter crap.
I know, it should be here.
Panic, panic, panic. Before we politely asked a passer-by. She looked behind her and calmly mentioned that The Pier was right ahead.
In big letters too. The Pier.
Joy of joys. We sucked in our embarrassment, straightened our blouses and hurried over. The best things are always the most esoteric nowadays. Or perhaps it’s always meant to be this way to prevent hyperactivity and overly sensational ravings from the common peasants who wander along Orchard Road and nowhere else.
Charming, charming.
Their coffee and wine selection is most agreeable, with a whole section dedicated to connoisseurs of either.
Burns a hole in your pocket, too. My old school camp facillitator Aik Seng treated Ruru and I, and wanted to engage in some appalling splurging. That single-shot espresso macchiato right there was round about nothing less than $5 or $6, if I may correctly recall. I never was one for such price memorisation. It surged with the strength of real caffeine. Believe it or not I saved that little square of (hopefully) dark chocolate in the misty corner of my black tote, waiting for the right time. Today isn’t right, and tomorrow probably won’t be either. Somewhere, sometime in heaven perhaps.
Even though no one will be there anyway.
We quickly ordered the chocolate soufflé, since Ruru warned that it typically takes quite a while to prepare and then serve. I hurried the waiter, who I’m afraid to say failed to impress on any level.
At all. It took about 5 times before he stumbled towards our table, hefty with the pains of everyday life and almost steaming with a mild sense of rebellion. Service-wise, it was a terrific disaster.
chocolate soufflé
This actually made my mouth water when I saw it make its way through the empty lit cavern, a dark-skinned king hailing triumphantly from the Land of the Oven. It rose almost obnoxiously from the pristine, gargantuan white thing of a ramekin, coupled by a lovely little scoop of raspberry sorbet.
Or in other words, its saving grace. I’m that type of person who can’t have a molten, gooey dessert my itself; it must certainly be accompanied by some wildly cold partner to lax its richness and offer some breezy, white-hued relief. The relief this time was in a becoming shade of baby carmine, good and icy, yet full of that frozen raspberry twang and punch.
Soft but not to the point whereby it was perfectly scoop-able and oh so dangerously fragile. The lady came with a tiny jug of hot chocolate sauce, which we all expected to flow out gracefully like a reincarnation of Wily Wonka’s chocolate river. Dark and seductive, making a nice small hole in the middle as it hit the centre, cracking its tissue-like surface and ravaging the fluffy holey interior.
We could not have been more wrong about anything in our entire lives.
The lady didn’t even pour anything, so we did so ourselves. Woe and behold, the sauce was thicker than the consistency of frozen nutella right out of the fridge. We literally had to force it out in thick , rounded globs. That chocolate flavour, I admit was well on spot, with the slightest hint of orange or perhaps even a tinge of Grand Marnier, to complement the rich electricity of dark chocolate. Could’ve had the whole jug if no one was watching (not like something like that would ever happen ever). It was just that terrible, terrible consistency which made my heart sink to the floorboards beneath and beyond.
I felt rather greedy when the other two had stopped picking at the souffle, but I continued to scrape and poke and prod and lick anyway. Story of a chocolate addict.
Thanks to my small lunch, I believe. I can be practical okay. If I possess some degree of sentience and sanity.
We attacked the middle to indulge in the tender warmth of its belly, before proceeding to enjoy the slight chewy crispness of the outside edges, warmed from the oven’s kiss and broil. All made just perfect with the contrasting tang of the raspberry. The one downside was that it was a smidgen dry, but the dense core and bottom were not lost, since even the little bits left over were obviously still very moist and slightly fudgy. But still a smidgen dry (and crumbly). Not as good as the strawberry one in La Bastide last year in December, but then again that would be like comparing little master with grand master in its native home. Partial comparisons make for no good comparisons at all, oui?
would you look at that
And no, you can’t go and have tea with a couple other lovely people and some riveting conversations on our lives and other random happenings with just one dessert.
Honestly. Be honest. Please, for you and for me.
It’s just not practical or sane. So we ordered another.
warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream
And that rounded the whole event off to make it perfect and beautiful and complete.
With a spoonful of whipped sweet cream for good measure (as if that will ever live up to the glory of the humble vanilla bean ice cream.) Comparatively, I actually preferred the texture and flavour of the chocolate souffle compared to this. Anything cakey or crumbly is not typically my cup of tea (all puns intended), but this was sufficiently moist. It said cake, not molten lava, so thankfully I was not let down by my own disappointment when there was absolutely no evidence of anything molten. Couldn’t help that small tinge of sadness, of course, but it was pleasing all the same, especially when paired with the sweet and aromatic vanilla. I quite enjoyed the bed of crumbled crackers which the ball of ice cream rested on. Textural variety is probably what I live for.
It’s Valentine’s Day today, isn’t it?
Wonderful! Let me revel in the magnificence of being absolutely single and elated in the blurred joys of life and raw freedom.
Rating: 4.4/5
Laurent Bernard Chocolatier
80 Mohamed Sultan Road #01-11
The Pier @ Robertson Singapore
6235 9007
Zooming in on my inherent ice cream addiction here.
There comes a time where it must must must be combined with something so supremely luscious it should be an atrocity. A grim streak in the face of white innocence.
Yes, chocolate.
Chocolate+ice cream= Not chocolate ice cream but something heavenly in the works; so ethereal it doesn’t deserve to be given a peasant-like name.
Chocolate ice cream. I mean, pfft. It should be feathersgolddustdarkdreamslovelysofaswissbelgianbeauty. Or, something of the sort.
There are the good ones from Haagen Dazs.
There are the mediocre, overly sweet chemical concoctions from Ben and Jerry’s (may I say I believe they have lost fans from the ice cream purists, with all the bits and bobs they mix in, in their endeavours to please the entire population. Not that I complain. Some are really rather lovely).
Then, there’s the painful one. Yes, just one. Whoever hasn’t heard of Awfully Chocolate by now should go and jump into a big, beautiful pool of green acid.
And it’s painful due to its painful irresistibility. In my opinion, the best chocolate ice cream I have tried so far. I remember being introduced to it the first time the signature flavour came out (though of course, many years after 1998, when the entire brand burst into life).
HEI. This is what I love. HEI.
At $11 a pint, this is at least $4 cheaper than your typical Haagen Dazs tub. And since so little air is incorporated into this rich chocolate pack, it is absolutely worth every single cent in that figure. Chockfull of flavour in 473ml; a nice prism of luscious, frigid temptation. The thing about this is that it’s simply spoon, mouth, spoon, mouth (or fork, if you’re nice and weird that way). Out of the tub, straight to chocolate-drenched utopia. Good chocolate always has a lower melting point, and you can gauge the quality of such by how fast this melts. It doesn’t do so too rapidly, but it does so at an exquisitely even rate, with a glossy undertone to prove its golden worth.
Success comes in the form of perfect chocolate churn with at least 70% cocoa solids. A bittersweet indulgence, to say the least.
Yes, that’s straight off the Internet haha. Just look at that wonderful, ridged sphere.
alexcrumb 