Skip to main content

Flourless Brownies—Worth Trying Again

I like chocolate. I mean, I really like chocolate. The darker the better. Something just short of unsweetened sounds just about right to me. I have a great recipe for flourless chocolate cake that I make a few times a year, and everyone loves it. No. 1 invited a friend over for dinner one night when I was serving the stuff, and the kid declared it the best dessert he'd ever tasted. Maybe he was being a polite guest, or maybe it's just that good.

Either way, when I ran across a recipe for flourless brownies the other day, I couldn't wait to give it a try. How could it be bad? Well, the recipe aside, sometimes things go wrong in the kitchen. For starters, the recipe came from The Guardian, so it calls for ingredients measured by grams. I have no way to measure grams, so I used an online converter to change that to cups, but isn't a gram a measure for weight, whereas a cup is a measure for volume? I might be wrong about that, but it seems to me you can't simply convert grams into measuring-cup terms.

I used the measurements suggested by the converter anyway. I put the batter into a 20cm-square pan, which I think is an 8x8, and with the oven set at 160˚C, which I think is something like 375˚F. I set the timer for the recommended 35 minutes and went downstairs into my office where I can't hear the timer. I know that, so I looked at the clock and told myself to get back upstairs in time. But did I forget? Of course I did. I started working on something else and lost all track of time, and 50 minutes later, I smelled brownies. I ran upstairs yelling, "Oh, crap. Oh, crap. Oh, crap." I took the pan out of the oven and frowned at the blackened edges, but I didn't lose hope. I let the stuff cool a little, and I cut it up, and it turns out the brownies weren't really burned at all. It's just some of the ground almonds that coat the pan that got a little over-toasted.

So, here is the recipe as I found it in The Guardian with my converted measurements in parentheses). Correct me where I'm wrong, if you know, and I'll try this again. And I promise to pay attention to the timer the next time.

Flourless Brownies

175g bittersweet chocolate (6 oz)
90g unsalted butter (6.3 T)
2.5 tablespoons strong coffee
3 large eggs
220g sugar (.957 cup—about a cup)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
125g ground almonds (1/2 cup—I ground them myself in a food processor, and I think they weren't quite ground enough)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat over to 160˚C (375˚F). Butter a 20cm-square pan (8x8) and throw in about a heaped tablespoon of the ground almonds and shuffle them around so that the whole of the inside is lightly coated.

Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave* and stir in coffee.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until pail and creamy. Stir in warm chocolate mixture. In another bowl, mix the almonds with the baking powder and then fold into the batter.

Bake for about 35 minutes (or whatever) and let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

*when melting chocolate in the microwave, start with 40 seconds. Stir the chocolate and heat again for no more than 20 seconds. Stir again to melt the pieces. Heat again for another 20 seconds at a time as necessary. If you try to melt it for any longer, it will burn, and you'll have to start over.

Comments

kyle@sift said…
I like the idea of using ground almonds to coat the pan...and flourless anything sounds great as I don't care to eat much wheat. Perhaps a kitchen scale is in order. I like baking by weight rather than volume for a more consistent result.
8:01 AM
savannah said…
i am so sending super nana over her for this recipe! she's started baking and it is spring break, so maybe her years of living in paris will help with the conversions, etc. i might have to try these myself. (btw, check out ina garten's panna cotta and balsamic strawberries. we used vanilla ice cream instead of the panna cotta.) xoxox
9:09 AM
Eustacia said…
One more reason to switch to the metric system. I should use this in my speech.
9:11 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No More Mr. Nice Guy

It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water. ...
20 comments
Read more

Long Live Anita Bowser

You know I occasionally check my hometown newspaper's website to scan the obituaries (morbid, I know, but I'm at that age). Over this past weekend, I read the obituary of Indiana State Senator Anita Bowser . She was a noted Democrat who championed causes protecting the neediest in the state's population. She was respected on both sides of the aisle for her intelligence and plain and outspoken approach to law making. The picture on her senate page is lovely. I remember none of those things about Anita Bowser . My first year or so in college was spent at a branch of Purdue University, and in the early 80s, Anita was a political science professor. She taught my American Government class my freshman year, and she was a mess. Somewhere in my old text book, I have a sketch of her drawn on a particularly dull day in class--her hose sagged at her ankles, her slip showed at least half an inch all the way around, her hair had been slept on but not brushed, and her bright red lip stic...
18 comments
Read more

Ish People

Tell an Ish person to show up around 9 a.m., and you'll see them somewhere around 9 a.m. Tell them to show up at 9ish, and you'll see them anywhere from 9:05 to 9:20. You have given them license to dilly dally, and who wouldn't take advantage of that? The other night at the big shindig dinner party, one of the drummers said the rehearsal the next morning would begin at 9ish. "I am an ish person," he says. Immediately the clanker goes off in my head--oh, good, I thought. I can deliver my daughter a little late. No Ish person is early, so if you say 9ish, that does not mean give or take 5, 10, 15 minutes. It's exclusively a taking phrase. Take an extra 10 minutes to drink your cup of coffee. We won't mind. We're Ish people. Sunday's rehearsal started at 2:00. Because it was conducted by the same people who conducted the Saturday rehearsal, my understanding was 2-ISH. My daughter is worse than I am about taking liberties with Ish time frames, so she d...
14 comments
Read more