Except for the Brownie cake I made for my birthday recently, I never made Brownies myself (as I never made chocolate bars, creamy cakes, tartes etc. before I joined TWD, so it is not really something extraordinaire that homemade Brownies are new to me).
Because I take everything I bake to work (no husband, no kids, no dog), I always appreciate recipes that can be transported easily, as the one Tanya of Chocolatechic picked for this week. This month, I am especially lucky in this regard! You may find the recipe at her page or in the book.
One of my colleagues is gluten- and lactose-intolerant and I don't do the extra work often, but sometimes I try to bake things she can also enjoy (with less success, I have to admit). This week was one of these weeks. I chose to make a second Brownie recipe, and opted for the "Tribute to Katherine Hepburn" Brownies. I just love Katherine Hepburn. I do.
But let's first speak about the duty, before the pleasure.
Rick Katz Brownies for Julia turned out to be a bit of work, at least compared to what I expect of Brownies (what is a batter mixed together in 5 min. without any difficulties). It was not that tricky, but nevertheless you need at least three different pans/bowls, and some more time as you have to whip part of the egg-sugar-mix.
For the chocolate I again mixed different sorts. The recipe calls for 4 ounces (112 g) unsweetened chocolate. Originally, I intended to half the recipe, so I had only about 2,5 ounces (70g) at hand. In sum, I needed 6 ounces (168g) of chocolate so I decided to just take more of the other chocolate. I had 2,5 (70g) of excellent Dolfin chocolate (70% with little cocoa bean pieces - great!) and replenished for the rest with ordinary 70% chocolate.
( If you have never seen Dolfin chocolate, enjoy these pictures! The tablets are packed in enveloppes, and when you open it, it looks like a pack of tobacco...)
For the rest I did as the recipe said. As always, I used spelt flour and cane sugar.![](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4337579711_65b493da34_m.jpg)
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It worked out quite good for me. I sprinkled a small band with shredded almonds, and another one with non-pareilles, just to test it.
The part with the pearls did not turn out to be a great idea. Nothing bad happened, but they lost their colour and it is just not necessary. But the almonds look pretty fine.
![](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2772/4337593877_0162c15aba_m.jpg)
Like with many others, the inner parts stayed very, very humid (or "gooey" - a new word I learned. Generally, TWD is a language crash course for me. Gooey, fudgy, cake-like is what I learned this week :o]). As I said in the beginning, I am a big fan of humid Brownies. But it was not really possible to cut them, and I guess that's too much humidity.
I decided to frost them and had the great idea to make a white-chocolate-iceing also for the Hepburn-Brownies, so I had to use the lactose free butter and the no-lactose-no-gluten chocolate.
![](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4009/4337597251_b819a3030a_m.jpg)
Finally, I put the Rick Katz Brownies in the fridge (because I read that could improve the almost-liquid-problem. And it did).
Brownies can't be wrong for me, so I definitely appreciated them. Thanks to Tanya for choosing them!
Oh, and here the result for the Hepburn-Brownies: They were a flop. Big problems. Again, it could be that the no-glute-no-lactose topic eventually plays a role in here. I hope so, because otherwise it would be all my fault...
![](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4337564971_8fe13e8de1_m.jpg)
![](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2736/4338226910_4fa9ff78ae_m.jpg)
The test piece (see left) turned out as a brick. Really. A round, black, brittle-not-in-a-good-way brick.
The "real" piece looked the same, but I found out that the inner parts are ok. I just had to cut off the edges (well, if you call 2 cm still an "edge"). They are more cake-like than anything else. I finally did pass them over to my colleague, but they are really not my best piece of work.
I can't believe I finally found you!!! Thank you so much for the lovely Christmas gifts and the postcard. I loved everything. I'm enjoying looking through your blog! Send me your email address so we can correspond, ok? Kelli
AntwortenLöschenMmm, double the pleasure. I thought the Tribute brownies were the best ones yet.
AntwortenLöschenVery "humid" indeed - but tasty too!
AntwortenLöschen