Baking Diaries: Brownies Pt 2

Let it be made clear that I am not a professional baker (obviously), nor am I an avid baker, I am merely a baker due to a sugar obligation. I enjoy it as a hobby as some people might playing guitar, or painting pictures. In no way do I intend to pursue baking as a career, which is most likely a positive thing for the generic consumer public.

Let it also be made clear that I am not a patient person. Which means that when I'd promised myself to methodically create the perfect brownie recipe I should have considered that I would have to endure long periods of trial and error and many, many, not-perfect brownies which I would have had to force upon my family until The One was found.

Unfortunately, I am not good at methodical creation. The only reason for this whole project is to be able to boast the best (anything) ever, and to perhaps have a recipe or two under my belt which can actually run smoothly. I like instantly perfect recipes, and I scour the hundreds of pages on the internet envying the comments that declare their new-found all-time favourite recipe. It makes me seethe and glare into the screen and curse my old and temperamental oven for its incompetency (I always, of course, conveniently forget to blame myself).

This impatience, and my laziness, will lead to my inevitable downfall. My second attempt at the allegedly perfect brownie recipe, with modifications, hasn't turned out quite as I expected. And due to my afore-mentioned impatience, I cannot pinpoint the reason for the change in outcome as I have changed more than one variable... all at once.

It was reasonable logic. I'd already decided beforehand I'd reduce the amount of sugar due to my sweet tooth disliking sweet things. Because of this I thought it only appropriate to increase the amount of dry ingredients to compensate, and, in addition to a lower baking heat and an entirely different method of construction, I have no idea what just happened.

As with a typical brownie recipe, I cooked the first batch by melting the butter and chocolate over a bain-marie. However, this time I decided to be lazy, and instead melted it straight in the pan, and promptly forgot of its existence as I measured out the remainder of my ingredients. It may or may not have resulted in burning the chocolate. Unfortunately, I'm unable to tell due to its lack of sweetness from the sugar.

I am a huge disappointment.

Recipe II

225g butter

200g dark chocolate

4 eggs

1 cup sugar (decreased 1/2 cup)

1 3/4 cups flour (increased 1/4 cup)

3/4 cup cocoa powder (increased 1/4 cup)

1 cup chopped nuts etc (again, optional. And again, omitted)

The following method shall be written in past tense, so as to document my failures:

Heated oven to 160 C (perhaps the most intelligent thing I did).

Melted butter and chocolate in a saucepan (possibly burnt it. Big mistake).

Added sugar and mixed until combined.

Cooled for a few minutes, added eggs one at a time and mixed until combined.

Added cocoa powder and flour, mixed until combined.

Baked for 19 minutes until toothpick came out with a few moist crumbs.
Cooled completely before cutting.

Have I mentioned that I'm lazy? The camera quality is pathetic, I know (camera phones, sigh). I don't know why it's hazy. It looks like a romanticised, Japanese photo-booth date picture than a pastry mugshot.

Like so.

I tried, okay.

Notes:

• Just before baking the whole mixture oozed oil. It was very unattractive. It also happened post-baking, though I dabbed a lot of it off with a paper towel.
• The centre was fudgy while the very outer border was cakey. Perhaps my approach to this is wrong. I used a very wide metal tin. There are suggestions online to use a glass pan instead, as it is not such a good conductor of heat. (My cluelessness is perfect proof as to why I should not become a professional baker.) It was fudgy but not due to it being undercooked, which is a first for me. The texture was more like a brownie than anything else I've attempted (and improved overnight), but it's not satisfying for my personal preferences.
• The overall taste was bittersweet, which again may have been due to the burnt chocolate, and the decreased sugar. I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys their baked goods not too sweet.

Conclusion:

• Overall mark is again 13/23, due to my baking (for lack of a better word) n00bness.
• I'll attempt the next recipe with half the butter next time - 225g was a lot to begin with, though I'll stick to the amount of sugar and flour of this recipe.