I heart brownies in a big way. Nigella Lawson, the cookbook author from whom this recipe has been adapted (begged, borrowed, and slightly stolen), touts as one of their highest virtues the fact that they can be whipped up in a matter of minutes. I would add to that sterling quality the fact that, unlike so many other “easy” desserts and confections, your sink will not look like a dirty dish graveyard – one bowl, one pan, one spoon, and one baking dish is all that this recipe requires.

Now that I’ve sold you on the recipe, I will relate a small pet peeve of mine, and that is the habit that we have of labeling recipes as the “perfect” or “best” such-and-such. In my quest for a decent brownie recipe, I came across a multitude that claimed to be “the best” or “perfect”, which is an obvious impossibility, given their wide variety. I balk at the supposition that the recipe author knows my tastes, or, worse, is assuming that their interpretation of the pinnacle for that particular foodstuff is superior to all others. It irks me, and, in an unsurprising development, I realized that I was guilty of the same crime, on my “Best” Ginger Cookie post. The morals of this story are that we don’t know each others’ tastes and I am a hypocrite.

This is all a relevant prelude to this very good brownie recipe. I wouldn’t ever call it perfect, because, if you like your brownies cakey, or light and fluffy, this won’t suit you at all. You may even label it the worst brownie recipe. If, on the other hand, you like your brownies to have a fair amount of heft, stick-to-your-ribs, and chew like they were fighting to stay in your mouth, then you might give this recipe a decent review. If you also happen to like when people say “there’s something special about this” because it has a particular flavor that they enjoy but can’t quite place, then you’ll rave about this recipe. These brownies are warm, comforting, moist, dense, and have a certain twinkle of flavor that can not be easily placed. Read down below to see the secret ingredient and, as always, enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Secret Ingredient Brownies, Yields 12-15

Adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Baking Time: 25 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 40 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 ¼ Cups Butter, softened

8 oz. Best Bittersweet Chocolate,

4 Eggs

2 Tsp. Best Quality Vanilla

2 Tsp. Vietnamese Cinnamon (secret ingredient!)

1 ¼ Cups Sugar

1 Cup Flour

¾ Tsp. Salt

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350° and prepare the brownie pan (13x9x2.5 inches) by lining with parchment paper.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a medium-sized sauce pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on it the chocolate as it melts, and make sure that the mixture doesn’t get too hot. Once melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, vanilla, and sugar. Add the flour and salt and mix well. Add the slightly cooled chocolate and mix vigorously.

Pour the mixture into the lined brownie pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Remove the baked brownies from the oven and let them sit in the pan for 5-10 minutes before cutting, serving, and enjoying!

]]> http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/12/27/secret-ingredient-brownies/feed/ 4 http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/06/08/entertaining-for-champagne-taste-on-a-milwaukees-best-budget-vietnamese-roast-chicken/ http://besottedgourmet.com/2009/06/08/entertaining-for-champagne-taste-on-a-milwaukees-best-budget-vietnamese-roast-chicken/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:17:15 +0000 Jessica http://besottedgourmet.com/?p=1552

I remember when I threw my first BBQ… I was so eager to have a few (ahem, 15-20) friends over, serve them my fried chicken, watermelon salad, and homemade desserts, and see a happy late summer day unfold before my gracious, hospitable eyes. It all seemed so convivial…. that is, until my mantra (borrowed from Nigella) of ‘never knowingly under-catered’ turned my party budget into something that more closely resembled my rent.

It was a hard lesson and sad reality…. as much fun as it is to throw a party for our nearest and dearest, it takes an awful lot of money to do it well. And, the fact is, none of us want to host an event and serve our guests Dollar Store crackers and factory farm chicken. We want to do as Ina does and serve Lobster Potpie, Capellini with Caviar, or have an enormous Kitchen Clambake, but these menus are generally far outside of a reasonable budget.

So, now the question is, how do we serve to impress – admit it, we all want to impress – and pamper our guests without taking out a second mortgage…. if we could get a second mortgage?

The answer is to make basic, inexpensive ingredients exceptional with a few extraordinary spices, flavors, and techniques. The Lemon Crème Chicken is a great example, as is this Vietnamese Roast Chicken that I found on the Wandering Chopsticks Blog….

This recipe comes out restaurant-quality-good…. the chicken is moist and flavorful, and the paste that it marinates and roasts in is simply perfect. But, it’s not just the execution, the inclusion of flavors like five spice powder, cumin, and fish sauce are so scarce in our every day menu that they instantly elevate the dish to an extraordinary stature.

Vietnamese Roast Chicken, Serves 4

Adapted from Wandering Chopsticks Blog

Prep Time: 10 Minutes

Roasting Time & Marinade Time: 1 Hour 45 Minutes Minutes

Total Prep Time: 1 Hour 55 Minutes

Ingredients:

 2 Split Chicken Breasts, bone in and skin on or 1 Unsplit Chicken Breast, bone in and skin on

1 Tbls. Soy Sauce

1 Tbls. Honey

2 Tsp. Fish Sauce

2 Tsp. Chinese Five-Spice Powder

1/2 Tsp. Kosher Salt

1/2 Tsp. Pepper

1/4 Tsp. Cumin

4 Garlic Cloves, finely chopped

Preparation:

Mix all of the ingredients, except for the chicken, in a medium-sized bowl, until they have formed a smooth paste.

With your hands, rub the paste over chicken, pushing it under the skin and massaging into the meat for 3 minutes.

Refrigerate the chicken for at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 425°.

Bake the chicken, skin-side down, in a baking pan for 15 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 325°, and bake for another 30 minutes, skin-side up.

Turn the broiler on and move the chicken to the top of the oven for an additional 2 minutes, to get the skin really crispy.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 5 minutes, before serving.

Enjoy!

I am very nearly done with recounting the cupcake recipes from PT’s Birthday Extravaganza. I probably should have saved the best for last, but I like to keep things interesting, so I’m featuring the popular favorite from that evening (and the mornings after) in this third installment.

This recipe was the amalgamation of inspirations found across the web and in my own dear How to be a Domestic Goddess. I loved the rich dark chocolate and cherry cake that Nigella featured, but I was looking for a more outstanding presentation than the simple, recommended cherry on top.

I found a cherry merengue topping recipe, doctored it a bit to fit with the cupcake, and then decided, since it was a special birthday, that a little extra something was called for, so I dipped the final cherry merengued cupcake into melted chocolate.

And the result looked spectacular (if I must say so myself), and it tasted even better – the cake itself was lush, moist, and bursting with cherries; the merengue was light and dreamy, and its dark chocolate topping put it sublimely over the top. PT and friends chose wisely in their election of this Cherry Chocolate Cupcake as the best of the four offered – it can a special occasion of the biggest birthday or your average-Joe Tuesday.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe….

Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes

Prep Time: 90 Minutes

Baking/Cooling Time: 2 ½ Hours

Total Prep Time: 4 Hours

*Note: I know the Total Prep Time looks scary, but most of this is just waiting for cooling and melting to take place – if you have 4 hours to putter around the house and intermittently work on other projects, this is a perfect recipe.

Ingredients:

For the Cupcakes:

½ Cup Butter, softened

4oz. Bittersweet Chocolate, in pieces

1 1/3 Cups Best Quality Cherry Jam (containing real cherries)

½ Cup Sugar

¼ Tsp. Salt

2 Eggs, beaten

1 Cup Cake Flour

For the Merengue Topping:

4 Egg Whites

1 ¼ Cup Sugar

1 Cup Butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces

¼ Tsp. Almond Extract

4oz. Bittersweet Chocolate, melted

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a muffin tin with baking cups.

Over medium-low to medium heat, melt the butter in a heavy sauce pan. Once melted, add in the broken up chocolate pieces, stir for a minute, remove from the heat, but continue to stir until the chocolate has melted into the butter.

Add the cherry jam, sugar, salt, and eggs to the sauce pan. Continue to stir until the mixture is smooth. Add the flour and mix well.

Pour the batter into the baking cups about ¾ of the way full. Bake for 25 minutes, remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes in the pan before removing to a cooling rack for 30 minutes.

While the cupcakes are baking, you can get on with the merengue topping….

Heat the egg whites and sugar in a double-boiler (or makeshift) and whisk constantly until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture reaches a temperature of 160°, about 10 minutes.

Probably the least delicious-looking part of the recipe, but well worth it in the end....

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, add the egg whites, sugar, and almond extract. Whip on high speed (increase the speed steadily, pausing at each interval for a beat or two) for 5-7 minutes, until the egg whites and sugar are thick and form peaks.

It's starting to get good!

Switch the mixer’s attachment to the paddle attachment. With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the soft butter two tablespoons at a time, mixing well between each addition.

Oh my, this is SO good!

You can leave the merengue topping white, or do as I did, and add a bit of food coloring for a splash of color.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, add the merengue topping to a pastry bag (or a makeshift pastry bag made from a plastic bag) and pipe the merengue topping around the tops of the cupcakes.

Put the cupcakes in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours, to allow the merengue topping to harden a bit.

When the 1-2 hours is almost up, melt the chocolate in a double-boiler (or makeshift double-boiler) for 5-10 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the refrigerator and swirl the top of each into the melted chocolate. Allow to cool at room temperature until the chocolate is hard and serve, about 20 minutes.

 
Enjoy!

In case you hadn’t noticed, I am a woman who loves to experiment. The words “oh, just leave it be” rarely cross my lips, and the baking extravaganza that took place in preparation for PT’s birthday party afforded me ample opportunity to flex my experimental muscles.

The Burnt Butter & Sugar Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Ginger Chips was probably my most avant-garde cupcake. A very basic, but delicious cupcake recipe becomes the center of attention with bright green frosting embedded with sugary ginger chips.

In case it wasn’t readily obvious, this is a decidedly adult cupcake (children may balk at the ginger chips). Not too sweet, kind of tangy, and very sophisticated, despite its somewhat garish colors.

A couple notes about this recipe:

1. Burning butter takes awhile… start that before you even think of doing the rest, and you’ll be fine.
2. Dear CS will be providing us with a fun cocktail for this cupcake recipe, so stay tuned. 

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Burnt Butter & Sugar Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting & Ginger Chips, Yields 12

Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess

Ingredients:

For the Cupcakes

1 Cup Butter

1 ¼ Cup Cake Flour

5 Tbls. Sugar

½ Cup Brown Sugar

3 Eggs

1 ½ Tsp. Best Quality Vanilla

1 ½ Tsp. Baking Powder

3 Tbls. Whole Milk

For the Frosting

½ lb. Cream Cheese, at room temperature

½ Cup Butter, at room temperature

½ Tsp. Best Quality Vanilla

¼ Tsp. Best Quality Almond Extract

¾ lb. Confectioner Sugar, sifted

Food Coloring

½ – ¾ Cup Ginger Chips

Preparation:

Burn your butter by heating it in a small sauce pan over medium heat, stirring constantly for approximately 10 minutes. (You will start to see a color change 7-8 minutes after the butter has melted.)

Burnt butter has a rich orangey-yellow color.

Remove from the heat and strain to remove the solid sediment. Set aside in a cool dry place until it has regained a solid, but still soft, form. This should take an 1-1 ½ hours. (You can place it in the refrigerator to speed up the process, but keep an eye on it to ensure that it doesn’t get cold or hard again.)

Cheese cloth over a fat separator is my strainer of choice.

When the butter has cooled, but is still soft, you’re ready to make the rest of the cupcakes.

Preheat the oven to 400°. Line a muffin tin with cupcake cups.

Put the burnt butter, cake flour, sugars, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until the batter is a smooth consistency. Slowly add the milk through the feed tube, pulsing all the while.

Divide the batter among the cupcake cups, filling close to the top. Bake for 17-20 minutes.

While the cupcakes are baking, prepare your frosting.

Put cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and almond extract in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until creamy. Add the confectioner sugar ½ cup at a time and beat until smooth.

Oh my, is this ever good!

Once the frosting has achieved a smooth consistency, add your food coloring according to the package instructions. I used the option for coloring a 16oz. container of white icing green, which called for approximately 20 drops of green and 4 drops of yellow. The great thing about food coloring is that you can test with fewer drops and just continue adding until your desired color is achieved.

Feel free to experiment with your dyes to tweak the color up and down.

Once the cupcakes are done baking, remove from the oven, and test for doneness with a clean toothpick. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then dump onto a wire rack and let cool for 30 minutes.

Once the cupcakes are cool, frost them and add the ginger chips to the top. I chose to put mine all over the cake, but feel free to experiment with your own design (a flower, sun, letters or names, etc.)

Enjoy!

Hump day gets a little lift from blackberry mascarpone filled chocolate fudge cupcakes

It was PT’s birthday a few weeks ago, and I admittedly went a bit nuts in the cupcake preparations. I had fully intended to back a sheet cake sized to feed the 25 party attendees, but after reading Smitten Kitchen’s quite frankly frightening list of do’s and don’ts regarding sheet cake preparation and transportation, I decided that cupcakes would be much more practical…. Three days later, I could be found in my apartment-turned-bakery grooving to Lady Gaga with 3 types of frosting in my hair, surrounded by cooling racks, and stepping across boxes of cupcakes.

The results....

I made 4 different kinds of cupcakes, each with their own frosting and topping, filling, and personality. I’ll include each of the recipes over the coming weeks, but I wanted to start with PT’s favorite, a dangerously dense and dark chocolate confection that remains cake-like in name only. The cupcake is a thick chocolate fudge, filled with blackberry mascarpone that spreads over the top of the cake. The final touch are two ripe blackberries that serve as a light, juicy counterpoint to the richness of the cake.

These cupcakes are essentially a re-jigging of Nigella Lawson’s Baby Lava Cake recipe, just baked and topped a bit differently. They are at their best when fully brought to room temperature, and be sure to have a tall glass of milk on hand to wash them down.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Blackberry Mascarpone, Yields 12

Ingredients:

For Cupcakes

¼ Cup Butter, at room temperature

12 oz. Best Quality Bittersweet Chocolate

½ Cup Sugar

4 Large Eggs, beaten together

1 Tsp. Best Quality Vanilla

1/3 Cup Flour

For Mascarpone filling

2 Pints Blackberries

1 Cup Water

¼ Cup Sugar

8 oz. Mascarpone

Preparation:

Line your muffin tin with 12 baking cups.

Preheat the oven to 400°.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (either real or makeshift). Set aside to cool slightly.

Cream the butter and sugar together with a mixer at medium speed. Slowly add the eggs and then the vanilla. Add the flour, and, once incorporated, add in the cooled chocolate. Continue mixing on low-medium speed until the batter is very smooth, about 1 minute.

Pour the batter near to the top of the baking cups and bake them for 12-14 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them sit in the muffin tin for 10-15 minutes. Carefully remove the cupcakes from the muffin tin, taking care not to squish their soft middle. Allow to cool on a baking rack for at least 45-60 minutes while you make the mascarpone filling.

To make the blackberry mascarpone, start by breaking the blackberries down into a lumpy jam. Boil the 1 Cup of water and sugar in a sauce pan over medium-high heat for 3-5 minutes, just until the mixture is slightly thicker.

Add the blackberries to the sauce pan and stir continuously for 12-15 minutes. The blackberries will start to break down and meddle with the sugar water after 5-8 minutes, like in the photo above. Continue cooking until it reaches the consistency of a hot jam. Remove from the heat, allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.

Add the mascarpone to the cooled blackberries and mix well.

Prepare your cooled cupcakes for the blackberry mascarpone by scooping a small bit of the soft middle out, leaving a small bowl for the filling. I use a teaspoon, holding it vertically and twisting gently to scoop out enough of the cake to leave a hole one inch in diameter and about 1/2-1 inch deep.

Once all of the cupcakes have been scooped, use a small spatula to fill the cupcakes with the mascarpone and spread as a topping over the top.

Top each cupcake with two blackberries, serve with a tall glass of milk, and humbly receive the forthcoming praise.

I made a version of these ribs, adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson that I can no longer find, the first time for a barbecue several years ago. My friend’s children, Max & Oz, were very nearly refusing to eat anything until they stumbled on a pile of these ribs, and proceeded to munch away contentedly (and quietly) for the next hour. It was quite the endorsement and put these ribs on the short list of group-friendly recipes.

One of the things I like best about this recipe is its inclusion of unusual flavors that require no extra effort. Items like five spice powder, star anise, and chili paste in soybean oil are as easy to add as garlic powder, garlic, and mustard, but they open up the spectrum of flavors with no additional effort.

Star Anise adds a mellow licorice flavor to the marinade.

This is a slow-cooking recipe, only because it requires quite a bit of time to marinate and roast in the oven, but if you marinate the night before, and pop them into the oven the moment you walk in the door, the ease of preparing them could easily make them a weeknight dinner.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Sweet & Tangy Sticky Ribs

Ingredients:

4 Tbls. Red Wine Vinegar

3 Tbls. Soy Sauce

1 Tbls. Sesame Oil

4 Tbls. Honey

1 Cinnamon Stick, smashed into bits

3 Star Anise

3 Tbls. Ginger, chopped into finger-length sticks

4 shallots, chopped into finger-length sticks

4 cloves garlic, rough chop

2 tsp. Chili paste

1 Tbls. Five Spice Powder

1 Rack of St. Louise-style Ribs

Preparation:

Into a large, non-reactive bowl (tupperware), combine the red wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, 2 Tbls. honey, cinnamon stick, star anise, ginger, shallots, garlic, and chili paste. Cut the rack of ribs into thirds (or small enough to easily fit into the bowl), roll up your sleeves, and mash the marinade into ribs really well. Cover and let sit in the fridge for at least an hour, or as much as overnight.

Pre-heat the oven to 400°.

Dump the contents of the bowl, including the marinade into a baking dish. Cover with tin foil and roast for an hour.

Turn the oven up to 450°. Take the ribs out of the oven; remove the tin foil from the ribs and return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

Once the ribs have done cooking, remove from the oven, clear the marinade detritus from the meat, plate and serve.

These are marvelously lush and exceedingly easy to prepare individual cakes

Every once in awhile, you come upon a recipe so perfect, so simply and consistently outstanding, that it is virtually un-tweakable.

This recipe from Nigella Lawson’s acclaimed How to Be a Domestic Goddess is just such a recipe; I’ve made it countless times to stunning effect. The only reason I would have tweaked it would be for my own ego’s satisfaction and not because it would have improved it, which is why it comes to you essentially unaltered.

These little cakes are simple to make and splendid to present. The dense cake cracks open to reveal a cascade of luscious, oozing melted chocolate. Don’t worry, they are fully baked – the recipe calls for a heavier egg and fat to flour ratio than your typical cake, which keeps the center pudding-like, despite adequate time in the oven.

You can serve these cakes with any accompaniment, but I am exceedingly fond of crème fraiche for several reasons – 1) I tend to always have some in the house 2) it’s just a bit tart, which counterbalances the denseness and richness of the cakes beautifully 3) it’s not sugary – the last thing you want with such a chocolatey dessert is a bit more sugar.

Although the original recipe says that you can make the batter in advance and stick it in the fridge for a few hours, I’ve never had much luck with that, unless the batter has had a chance to come to room temperature. I would mix the batter just before sitting down to dinner and pop them in the oven after the main course; they only take 13 minutes to bake, which will give you time to digest.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Baby Lava Cakes, 6 Servings

Ingredients:

12oz Bittersweet Chocolate

¼ Cup Butter, softened

½ Cup Sugar

4 Eggs

½ Tsp. Salt

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1/3 Cup Flour

Crème Fraiche, to serve

Preparation:

Grease the ramekins with butter (as an aside, I detest greasing pans for baking with spray non-sticks – they always smell vaguely metallic and never do quite as good a job as plain old butter.)

Fold a piece of parchment paper in two; lay three ramekins top-side down on the parchment paper and draw circles around their circumference. Cut the circles out and line the greased ramekins with them.

Pre-heat the oven to 400° with a cookie sheet warming inside.

My yankee ingenuity and thriftiness keep me from spending $200+ on a real double-boiler. This makeshift version is an effective and inexpensive alternative.

Set the chocolate to melting over a double-boiler, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat once thoroughly melted and allow to cool.

This recipe affords the hungry and undisciplined cook many wonderful spoon-licking opportunities.

Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a mixer and cream. Add the eggs, one at a time, allowing each to be absorbed by the mixture before adding the next. Add the salt and vanilla. Once all of the liquid ingredients have been mixed thoroughly, add the flour and mix until incorporated.

Once the melted chocolate has cooled, stir this into the batter. The batter should be luscious, thick and glossy.

Divvy the batter amongst the ramekins. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, place the ramekins on it and return to the oven. Bake the baby lava cakes for 13 minutes.

Remove the cakes from the oven. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, and then tip them, carefully, upside down onto a plate or into a steep bowl. Spoon on crème fraiche according to your liking.