Brownies

Until a week ago I knew nothing about brownies just something I heard people talking about sometimes or seen on some coffee shops, but never had the curiosity to find out more and have a go at making them.

But a week ago a very good friend having gone for a 30 miles cycle ride stopped at a cafe for a break and had a brownie, sent a whatsApp message with a photo saying how delicious it was and we must go there for coffee and have some.

Well my curiosity awakened and I went on line to find a recipe, having read around 10 plus there all had the same ingredients with different proportions, and method were also different they all stress the importance of crispy on the top and gooey on the inside so that awoke my curiosity as usually something classic the recipes are the same where ever to look it up  like a Victoria sponge no matter where you read the recipe the ingredients are the same or the pound cake another example.

So my curiosity took me to the history of the brownies but that did not tell me anything and it seems the original recipe is still a secret and somewhere I read did not have flour but nothing else so I was put in a situation I had to make a decision and chose a recipe for me to try.

As I don't like complicated things I chose one that the proportions of the ingredients would be easy to remember so I went back on my search and found 3 sites that had ingredients very similar so I had my first go here is what I did

Ingredients

but   butter 100 g, (I used unsalted butter),
     dark chocolate 200 g, (I used 70% Callebaut chocolate)
     eggs 4
    caster sugar 250 g
    plain flour 100 g
    baking powder 1 tsp
    cocoa 30 g

Method

      STEP 1

Heat the oven to 180 C/fan 

      STEP 2

Line a 22 cm square brownie tin with baking parchment. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Cool to room temperature.

     STEP 3

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until the mixture is light and creamy colour

      STEP 4

Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, mix well together and then sift on the flour, baking powder and cocoa.

      STEP 5

Fold the flour and cocoa into the batter carefully so you don't loose air.

      STEP 6

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is cracked but the middle just set. Cool completely, then lift out of the tin and cut.

    Conclusions

The result was good and I shared it with several friends and they all like it but I thought the recipe had too much sugar so next day I made another batch changing the proportions the following way

I reduced the amount of sugar by 50g. and I used 50/50 flour and ground almonds.

this was also well received by friends.

So now my next task is to find out if using only 100 g of sugar on the recipe the crispiness and gooey in the middle stays the same, I am sure the taste will be good as when using best quality dark chocolate everything taste amazing.

Well having done 5 different test I think I got it, here are my findings for those of you that might like to make brownies with reduced sugar and still have the gooey feel in the middle

It appears that it is the gluten in the flour that by reducing the sugar makes it like a cake and looses the gooey in the middle so by using gluten-free flour one can reduce the sugar and the gooey middle stays.

I have done 2 different test using gluten-free flour and both came perfect.

To make it simple to remember I used 200g dark chocolate and 4 eggs.  the rest of the ingredients I just used 100 g. of each butter, sugar, gluten-free flour, I used oats in one test and in the other test ground almonds. I am sure one can use any gluten-free flour but have not tested others just oats and almonds.

I baked it for 25 minutes I found if baked for 20 minutes is a bit more gooey.

I worked out that making the recipe like this it is easy to change the quantities up or down as it is 25g per eggs on each ingredient and 50g per egg on the chocolate.

I did some more test experimenting with other things, coconut flour worked but didn't taste as nice as oats and almonds. As I used good quality dark chocolate (54-70%) I did not add the cocoa powder.

I also found that adding 50 or 60ml. of liquor, I used Baileys or Irish liquor taste really nice and  to keep the moisture longer I made some adding grated apple or pears I used two apples which was about 200g just the same amount as the chocolate and baked for 25-30 minutes at 180 degrees.