Black Sesame Brownies

Original recipe is here, from Pig Pig's Corner. Don't be intimidated by the soya sauce...well, I was. It actually turned out to be really fragrant and almost non detectable. I was expecting the texture to be fudgy, it turned out pretty cakey though.

We're so hungry

Adorable pup at CTC market

Godly Krispy Kreme!!!

A quick update on my recent Bangkok trip. It was fun!! ...I guess it was enjoyable because I had the right company. Some of you may know that I've recently started seeing someone new. The trip was initially a wreck because it was booked way early last year with my not-worth-mentioning-ex. Somewhere along the way he died, so I initially decided to proceed with the trip alone, then my boyfriend decided to join me impromptu. We hit it off straight away, we never run out of topics and laugh at the same gags. The chemistry is superb and he dotes on me a lot. And of all places, we met at a Workers' Party rally hahahah Will fill you guys in on the details when I'm feeling more romantic.

Black Sesame Brownies (adapted from Pig Pig's Corner)

Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter, melted
100g black sesame seeds
125 g caster sugar
1/2 tsp light soy sauce
2 eggs
100g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp black sesame seeds, for sprinkling

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 160°C (fan).
2. Combine melted butter and sesame seeds in a food processor or blender and blend until a paste is formed.
3. Add sesame paste to a pan, add sugar and soy sauce, fry for a few mins until fragrant (oil will start to separate). Remove from heat and leave this to cool.
4. When sesame mixture is cool to touch (warm is fine), mix in eggs one by one.
5. Gently fold in plain flour until just combined.
6. Pour batter into a lightly greased and lined square tin.
7. Sprinkle black sesame seeds on top. [Don't omit this step, as the sesame seeds add a nice crunch to the cake!]
8. Bake for about 25 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Out-of-This-World Brownies

Right. It looks like a disaster, I mean it IS a disaster. Got boyfriend to bring my cold brownies home one night before the BBQ and condensation setted in and the candy cane started smearing like a crying girl's mascara over the ganache. This is honestly much worse than Jess's Christmas tree turning blue. I know these brownies look like abomination on its own, but I assure you it tastes better than it looks.

The only modification I did for the brownies (in the holy spirit of Christmas muahahaha) is to spread a layer of ganache and sprinkle 70g of coarsely crushed candy canes over and let it set in the fridge. These brownies are ultra rich and deeply chocolatey with the generous amount of chocolate used. It's one of the most fudgy brownies I've made so far, dark chocolate fans will be thrilled to sink their teeth into these lovely brownie bites.

this is the season to be jolly, FATlalalalalalalala~

On a side note, I need to start dieting. Have been feasting non stop and eating like a pig for few days in a row. Gonna have a few more celebrations and BBQs lining up this week. Not looking forward to Grandma or aunties saying that I've gained weight during the coming Chinese New Year gatherings. hurhur.

Out-of-This-World Brownies (adapted from Sherry Yard's Desserts by the Yard)

Ingredients:
105g all purpose flour plus 2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
113g unsalted butter
28g unsweetened chocolate (I use Hersheys)
198g bittersweet chocolate (I use 64% Tainori)
2 eggs
200g sugar

Method:
1. Place a rack in the middle the oven and preheat oven to 180°C. Line an 8" square baking pan with aluminum foil and spray with pan spray.

2. Sift together flour and salt and set aside.
3. Melt butter and both chocolates (either in microwave or on the stove). Stir with a rubber spatula until smooth. Allow to cool to tepid (32°C).
4. Using a stand or hand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy.
5. With a whisk, gently eat in the butter and chocolate. Fold in flour.
6. Scrape batter into prepared pan and place in oven. Bake for 25 to 30 mins, rotating the pan from front to back halfway through.
7. Brownies should be slightly firm to the touch and a crust should form on the top. A toothpick will not come out clean. Allow to cool in pan to room temperature before serving.

Walnut Chocolate Brownies

Am a huge fan of Anna Olson, hoarding the TV on AFC to catch her show during the first season of Fresh, now the second season is showing, I'm camping by the TV every Tuesday 9pm to catch her. So naturally I was in ecstasy when she announced that she's coming to Singapore for live demonstrations from 20th to 24th Nov. 10th Nov was the first day of registration open to public and by the time I have time to login that night, all the slots were taken up!!! Disappointed.

Byebye Anna :`( I'm so saaaaaad that I'm going to eat a tub of ice cream :( Miraculously, there were slots available a few days later when I check out the website. And I registered for it!! :P

Starstruck. She's SUPER DUPER AWESOME. My only regret is I didn't go earlier so that I can take the front row seats. Think it'll feel weird seeing her on TV again this coming Tuesday now that I've met her in person. She demonstrated the 3 desserts and we were given a serving of them. They all taste great. Think I'm going to try doing them someday.

omgomg when I grow up, I want to be just like her! :P

Invited a kid to help her with the tarts. To showcase how easy her recipes are, imo.

Raisin Butter Tart - a Canadian favorite

Maple Walnut Ice Cream

Apple, Date & Cheddar Muffin

Autographs on my books. I'm really just a school girl at heart. hehe

In relevance to my meet up, I'm making Anna Olson's brownies! She said there was a period of time where she was into this brownie craze and baking them daily until her husband was like, Your brownies are great, STOP! haha. Kinda remind how I'm like when I'm not happy with my bakes, I just keep repeating the same thing, trying out all sorts of recipes till I get it.

I'm kinda hoping these brownies will turn out to be the tall, non fudgy, cakey version which we commonly have over here, due to the recipe's higher flour and eggs ratio. Reduced the sugar by half to further ensure that it will not turn out as fudgy. And indeed, the brownies turn out to be like what I expected them to be. Can use a little more sugar if it's meant to be eaten on its own. I can imagine it being warmed up and served with a scoop of rich dense vanilla bean ice cream. Guess this will be my to-go recipe if I want a version of our local brownie.
Walnut Chocolate Brownies (adapted from Anna Olson's Sugar)

Ingredients:
225g unsalted butter (I use 200g)
92g cocoa powder (I use Valrhona)
350g sugar (I use 180g, will do 250g for the future bakes)
4 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
175g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
70g walnuts, toasted

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175 °C and grease a 8" x 11" baking pan (I use 9" square baking pan)
2. Melt butter over stove and pour into a larger bowl.
3. Sift cocoa into butter and stir in. Stir in sugar
4. Add eggs into mixture, blending well after each addition
5. Stir in vanilla
6. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt (do not sift) and add to cocoa mixture and blend
7. Stir in walnuts
8. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35 mins, until firm when touched

Chewy-Dense Brownies

Back from Malacca! Can't say I enjoy the trip too much because it was like a pigging out tour. Bus ride-sleep-eat-bus ride-sleep-eat. Not too good for my waistline. The irony is I lost weight despite having eating loads there. Think I lost muscle mass lying around in the bus all day.
Have been tasked with Project: Brownies by my team at work for this year end, if all go well, it'll come to something by end of this year. We'll see. So I'm back to trying out new brownie recipes which you shall be seeing more of them soon, in search of the chewy and cakey, since I've gotten a few fudgy-s going in my earlier recipes which I'm already pretty pleased. It gets kinda confusing what should be the standard brownie in Singapore. Most of the brownies sold are tall and more towards cakey. They're usually served warm with a scoop of ice cream. Whereas for american recipes, the more fudgy, the better. So I don't know, I'm just going to do what I think is good since I'm the baker hurhur.

So here's my first attempt for my new project. Chewy! Since I have not been doing anything from David Lebovitz for a while, guess I should eh?

Dense and moist brownies they are. It has the right amount of chocolate, in fact my colleagues prefer them over my previous brownies due to the addition of pecans which adds crunchiness and nutty flavor to the brownie and the chocolate is not overpowering. They also raved about the crusty flakey top.

In terms of chewy-ness, it is ironically not the most chewy brownie I had. In fact I think my previous ones are more chewy than these. With that, I actually prefer my previous attempt heh heh. I'm sure I've given it a good vigorous stir during the 30 secs matter-of-life-and-death-brownie-moment. Maybe it will take a minute instead of 30 secs for my skinny arms to achieve the same chewy texture since Mr Lebovitz is a grown up man himself, definitely have more muscles hurhur. Nevertheless, it's a pretty good brownie recipe to add into ice cream as a mix-in as they stay chewy even though I've froze them in the freezer for a bit for picture perfect cuts.
Chewy-Dense Brownies (adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop)

Ingredients:
113g unsalted butter
113g semisweet chocolate (I use Valrhona Alpaco 66%, even though book recommends 55% to 64%)
250g granulated sugar (I use 230g, like minus 20g of sugar will make much difference :Þ)
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
70g all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
85g semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (I left them out)
75g pecans/walnuts/whatever nuts, coarsely chopped and toasted (only added 55g pecans as there's all I'm left with LOL)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil, making sure the foil covers the bottom and sides. Spray foil with nonstick cooking spray
2. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over med-low heat. When butter is melted, reduce heat to low and add chocolate, stirring constantly until melted
3. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing between each addition
4. Add vanilla
5. Stir in the flour and salt, and stir vigorously for 30 seconds until batter is smooth
6. Stir in chocolate chips, if using
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, until the center is barely set. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Store at room temperature

Brownie Buttons

What happens when your baking withdrawal symptoms kicks in and you're only left with minimal ingredients in the house? You'll start flipping your library of baking books to see if there's a downsized version of anything-at-all to bake. And there I've found it! hehe

Melting white chocolate can be a bitch, was afraid that it'll seize again, so didn't go all the way, so the mixture was kind of thick. So I use a spatula and spread them over the buttons. Mama bought me a new mini zester, so was happy to use it. Ended up zesting my fingers instead LOL

I like how these buttons come in bite size so you wouldn't feel so bad if you just have one (really?) of it. The orange zest may be optional for this recipe, but I strongly recommend you to use it as it differentiates this brownie from the typical oh-no-it's-chocolate-and-chocolate-again brownies you have been having, contributes a tangy note to the chocolatey flavor. It actually tastes more like an ultra moist chocolate cake than a brownie, imo. A nice variation of typical fudgy brownie squares I've been making.

Brownie Buttons (adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours)

Ingredients:
Grated zest of 1/2 orange (optional)
1 tsp granulated sugar (optional)
35g + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
56g unsalted butter, cut into 4 pcs
70g bittersweet chocolate (I use Valrhona Alpaco 66%)
70g light brown sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 egg

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Light butter 2 miniature muffin pans, each with a dozen cups and place them on a baking sheet.
2. If you're using orange zest, combine zest and sugar in a small bowl, rubbing them between your fingertips to blend. Set aside.
3. Whisk together flour and salt
4. Melt the butter, chocolate and brown sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over very low heat, stirring frequently with a heatproof spatula and keeping an eye on the pan so nothing overheats or burns.
5. When mixture is smooth, remove from heat and cool for a min or two
6. Stir in vanilla, egg and zest (if you are using it) into chocolate mixture
7. When the mixture is well blended, add in the flour and stir only until it is incorporated. You should have a smooth, glossy batter
8. Spoon into 16 of the muffin cups, using abt a tsp batter to fill each cup 3/4 full
9. Bake for 14 to 16mins or until tops of buttons spring back when touched.
10. Transfer pans to rack to cool for 3mins before carefully releasing the buttons. Cool to room temperature on racks

To Make Optional Glaze:

1. Melt 56g of white chocolate in a small heatproof bowl set over saucepan of simmering water
2. As soon as chocolate is smooth, remove from heat
3. One by one, dip the tops of the buttons into the chocolate, twirling the buttons so that you get a little swirl at the center of each one and the excess chocolate drips back into the bowl
4. Refrigerate the buttons for 15mins to set the glaze

White Chocolate Brownies

There's nothing brown about these brownies and I wouldn't call them blondies as there is not even a single ounce of brown sugar in it. They're just uhhhhmm....White Chocolate Brownies.

Honestly my review isn't going to be accurate of what the actual recipe is. Reason being, my white chocolate seized during the tempering. Boohoohoo. Did an emergency rescue by adding some vegetable oil to save them, it did help a little, but not too much. Strained them and tried my best to reinstate the original amount of butter in the recipe, but since it's a mixture of butter + oil now, I don't know if the original recipe is moist enough or not haha? And the chocolate isn't going to be as good as it can be anymore.

Thankfully the brownies taste pretty good. I don't taste the grittiness from the seized chocolate at all. People who tried couldn't tell that the chocolate went through resuscitation operation. It also wasn't overly sweet. The crispy caramelized brownie top and tangy cranberries go with creamy chewy white chocolate. If you like cakey brownies, these are for you.

White Chocolate Brownies (adapted from Anna Olson's Sugar)

Ingredients:
75g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
170g white chocolate, chopped
2 eggs
200g sugar
2 tsp vanilla
140g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
40g dried cranberries (optional)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Butter and line a 9" x 9"baking tray with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.
2. Melt butter halfway over simmering water and add chocolate and stir until melted. (I'll melt chocolate and butter together in the future) Let mixture cool to room temperature
3. In a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or with an electric mixer), whip eggs, sugar and vanilla until pale and thick. Reduce speed to medium and add chocolate mixture.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt and stir into egg mixture, by hand
5. Stir in dried cranberries and pour batter into prepared pan
6. Bake for 45 mins (I baked mine for 28mins, I think 45min sounds too long for a brownie)
7. Let cool completely on a rack before cutting

Best Cocoa Brownies

What do you get when you try to put a piece of warm brownie on top of your icebox in the freezer? Soggy brownies!!!

Ok, now...don't tell my colleagues why my brownies taste so wet moist.

Right. So I tried to freeze my brownies a little to have a cleaner cut for my brownie squares. Foolishly placed them on top of my icebox and yeah...the rest is history. But they kinda dry themselves up after staying in the fridge overnight heehee?

Moving on from my unfortunate accident, I actually like these brownies. The coolest thing about this recipe is, I was half-expecting a dry and cakey brownie as there's not a morsel of bar chocolate being used! But notttt...it turned out to be equally fudgy and chewier than its melted-chocolate counterparts. I guess I did not execute the 40 strokes of vigorous beating as well, so it did not turn out as chewy as it can be (but still pretty chewy imo!) Most of my colleagues found it tad-too sweet, I guess american recipes do sometimes find themselves over-topping the sweetness charts for our local tastebuds. It's a fairly simple and satisfying bake but I'm still in search of my perfect brownie.

Best Cocoa Brownies (adapted from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet)

Ingredients:
140g unsalted butter
250g sugar
72g cocoa powder (natural or dutch processed are fine)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 eggs, cold
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
70g all purpose flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 165°C and line a 8" x 8"baking tray with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.
2. Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water
3. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test.
4. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. It looks fairly gritty at this point, but don’t fret — it smooths out once the eggs and flour are added.
5. Stir in the vanilla
6. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one
7. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer
8. Beat batter vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula
9. Spread evenly in the lined pan.
10. Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 20 to 25 minutes.
11. Let cool completely on a rack
12. Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Blondie

When I first started baking brownies, my mom who's not a big fan of dark chocolate asked me what's the "vanilla flavor" version of brownies. Asian old folks like to assume the antonym of chocolate to be vanilla. I was like yeah, a blondie. She was like what? So here we go, my first blondie! /cheers

This is a versatile recipe. You can add any mix-ins, be it chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruits or even whiskey (60ml plus an additional tbsp of flour). As I have some white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts lying around, they are a convenient bunch to throw in.

Not sure why my blondie turns out relatively flatter those who made from the same recipe. Not like it's a bad thing as you can have a thin slice of it which goes a long way. Any thicker, they may taste overwhelming. Gooey, rich in brown sugar, packed with vanilla and white chocolate goodness plus the nutty flavor of macadamia nuts as a sidekick, sweet tooths will be thrilled to sink their teeth into them.
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Blondie (adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

Ingredients:
114g unsalted butter, melted
218g brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
140g all purpose flour

90g white chocolate chips
65g macadamia nuts, chopped and toasted

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 175°C and grease a 8" x 8"baking tray
2. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth
3. Beat in egg, then vanilla
4. Add salt and stir in flour until well combined
5. Mix in white chocolate and macadamia nuts and pour the batter onto the baking tray
6. Bake for 20 to 25mins
7. Transfer blondie onto wire rack and allow it to cool before cutting them

Classic Fudgy Brownies

Have a friend's birthday coming up and he's got a sweet tooth like myself. So I know I could go all out and bake something rich and sweet for him. He saw a picture of one of my early bakes of a fudgy brownie and commented that it looks really yummy and why have I not baked that for our group of friends? He probably forgotten the casual remark, but I remember! heehee

I remembered I was complaining about how unattractive my bakes look on picture, he told me I could inform him in advance before I bake in the future, so he could come to help snap some pictures (he's into photography and he has got talent in it). Touched!!! Though it has never happened before since I bake at the spur of the moment most of the time, the gesture was much appreciated.

These fudgy brownies are the best I've made so far. Rich, dense and fudgy as the recipe promises. It's also tad chewy as well. Frosted them with a layer of ganache which makes it look even more so tempting and sinful, but it's good without it as well.

Happy Birthday Gabriel!! :)

Classic Fudgy Brownies (adapted from Sur La Table's The Art & Soul of Baking)
Recipe here is basically a conversion into metric measurements

Ingredients
Brownie:
113g semisweet chocolate (up to 56% cacao) (I use Valrhona Equatoriale 55%)
113g unsalted butter
56g unsweetened chocolate
200g sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
70g all purpose flour
pinch of salt

Dark Chocolate Ganache (optional):
88g dark chocolate, finely chopped (up to 60% cacao) (I use Valrhona Equatoriale 55%)
90g whipping cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175°C & prepare a 8"x8" square baking tin
2. Melt semisweet and unsweetened chocolate & butter on a double boil
3. Remove chocolate from heat and whisk in sugar
4. Whisk in eggs one at a time, stirring well to incorporate each before adding the next
5. Stir in vanilla extract
6. Whisk in flour and salt and continue to stir until mixture changes from dull looking to smooth and shiny
7. Scrape batter into prepared pan and spread evenly
8. Bake for 35 - 40 mins and transfer to a rack to cool completely
9. For the ganache, place chocolate in a bowl
10. Heat cream in a saucepan until it begins to boil and immediately pour it over the chocolate
11. Let ganache cool for 1h then cover with plastic wrap and set aside to finish cooling at room temperature until it has consistency of frosting, 8 to 10 hours
12. Spread ganache over cooled brownie and proffittt

Double Chocolate Cheesecake Brownie

A really late gatecrash to join the World Cup Fever. Glad I caught the match last night, the 2 teams really put up a good fight! Uruguay v Germany. Referee sure knows how to create drama by issuing a free kick for Uruguay at the last minute (literally!) when the score was already 2-3, causing German fans to break out in cold sweat teeheehee

Made some cheesecake brownie upon request of a dear friend as a halftime snack. Finally got the chance to open ceremony my Lindt’s dark chocolate for comparison to Cadbury’s Old Gold, and I must say I prefer the former. Lindt’s is relatively lighter and gives a better texture, and I like how it gives the brownie the original dark brown appearance as Cadbury leaves it almost-black. I also like how the bar is thin so I can simply snap it over the mixing bowl instead of having to whip out a chopping board just to cut them up; perfect reason for lazybones to choose Lindt over Cadbury anytime.

Made 2 mistakes:
(1) The swirling is a bad job done. I covered the whole brownie with cheese instead of leaving some brownie mixture exposed.
(2) I overbaked it. Having only baked normal brownies without cheese topping before, I did not know how much additional baking time is required. Did not camp by the oven on its last minutes, and the cream cheese browned, I thought it looked pretty much like pasta brownie HAHAHAHH Bf tried to comfort me that it doesn't look as bad as I think it does LOL

Nevertheless, I thought they look cute in the bear plastic wrappers I’ve gotten. Tastes unique too - Dense fudgy dark chocolate brownies with contrasting sweetness of cream cheese with a hint of saltiness.
Double Chocolate Cheesecake Brownie

Ingredients
Brownie:
80g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
80g unsalted butter
40g cocoa powder, sifted
30g all purpose flour, sifted
¼ tsp baking powder
100g white sugar
2 large eggs

Cream Cheese Topping:
200g cream cheese
1 egg yolk
60g caster sugar
Few drops of vanilla extract

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C & prepare a 9"x9" square baking tin
2. Melt chocolate & butter on a double boil, leave aside to cool while you work on the dry mixture
3. Mix together cocoa powder, flour, sugar & baking powder, then add mixture to chocolate mixture
4. Stir well, beating in one egg at a time until you have a silky consistency
5. Pour brownie mixture into pan
6. In a separate bowl, beat cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar & vanilla extract until smooth
7. Add dollops of cheese onto the brownie mixture & swirl them, making marble-liked patterns
8. Bake for 35mins or until the centre is set