Perfect?

The Perfect Brownie?

This blog started just over a year ago with an account of my quest to find the perfect brownie, resulting in my discovery of the chocolate brownie with salted caramel and peanuts. Quest over, I thought. In fact, I was so sure of it that I stopped looking altogether (those brownies are to die for and as I've just realised that I never posted the recipe, I promise to get it uploaded soon). 

The problem with perfection, however, is that it's a rather slippery concept and just when you think you've got it in your grasp, off it goes again. One very good example of the elusive nature of perfection can be found in another of my long-time quests: The Hunt for the Perfect Shoes. I have spent what is now the best part of two decades looking for the perfect shoes (all of you ladies out there will be intimately acquainted with the thrills and spills of this particular quest). Although the search itself didn't properly begin until I became an adult (with money of my own to fund it), I can trace its origins back to my childhood and one instance of extreme shoe envy, when Susan Smith turned up to school proudly sporting a pair of brown leather ’high’-heeled court shoes from Dunnes (high was a relative concept when coming from a place of constant flatness, so they were most likely all of 2-inches high). 

They seemed so grown-up and so far removed from the sensible Clarks shoes the rest of us were wearing, that we all spent the entirety of our lunch break taking turns to try them on. We were terribly envious and fascinated - high-heels were most definitely adult territory, yet here was one of our peers not only wearing grown-up shoes that fit her (i.e. not playing dress-up in her too-large Mammy's shoes), but walking as if she was born to it. At that point in time, shoes were still more about function than fashion - could I run, skip and play ball? - so the reason that the incident is so memorable probably has little to do with how lovely or fashionable the shoes might have been. I think it was more a budding awareness of their power; those shoes gave Susan a status beyond mere primary school student and for that one day, she was a queen among us.

Years later the hunt revolves around finding the perfect shoe to go with an outfit or to suit a particular occasion, location, season or activity. It's never one perfect pair of shoes (that would be way too easy); instead the list is endless and the goalposts constantly moving (the right boot for a hike in the mountains is most definitely not the perfect boot to wear to the office or out to dinner). And of course, that's the problem with perfection - our idea of what it is changes according to our needs, wants and desires (thus my idea of perfection can be quite different to yours). So does perfection exist? Am I doomed to search forever for the perfect shoe or the perfect brownie, all to no avail?

Chocolate Shoes

'Perfect' is a word that is bandied about recklessly - how often have you heard someone talking about wanting the 'perfect life' or the 'perfect job' for instance? But nobody has the perfect life (scratch the surface of what appears to be a perfect life and you would soon see the flawed, normal reality beneath) and certainly the perfect job is no more than a daydream (every job, even the great ones, have their humdrum, bang-your-head-against-a-wall moments). Seeking perfection in the big things will only lead to disappointment - there's simply too much scope for imperfection to creep in. But the little things, the everyday moments - they can be perfect. The perfect Mojito? Just ask my sister - she enjoyed one on a sunny afternoon recently, while sitting on her swing out the back garden. 

Perfection can be something to strive for, but it can also sneak up on you, creating a magical moment when all seems right with the world. For me, unexpectedly, that was an hour spent on the beach yesterday writing this. It was warm enough to walk barefoot in the sand, along the water's edge, and I had the whole beach almost to myself. I returned to sit on a rock in the sun, near the old railway bridge, where the babbling brook entered the sea (very picturesque indeed). At one point, I looked up from my scribbling and realised that I was perfectly content (despite a slightly numb bum from sitting on a hard rock) and for no particular reason at all. These moments might not last (the numbness and onset of clouds eventually drove me off), but while they do, they should be savoured. 

The Shoe of Perfection

So, the perfect shoes. Do they exist? Quite possibly: these chocolate shoes (a gift from Mam at Christmas) have it all - beauty, elegance, fabulous packaging, they work wonderfully with a cocktail, you can take them everywhere with you and they'll go with anything. But best of all, they taste delicious (a chocolate shoe! I know!!). Who could ask for anything more? 

But the perfect brownie? Well, No. 2 Sister happened to mention a recent outstanding brownie experience, in which a delicious chocolate brownie was topped with the most amazing chocolate fudge icing. It sounded so good that I simply have to give them a go. Could they supplant the current favourite, my perfect salted caramel and peanut brownie? Watch this space... 

Recipe for success

Little did I know when I first opened the Hamlyn All-Colour cookbook as a child that I was launching a lifetime of happy baking. The recipe on this page alone (chocolate brownies from the Favourite Family Cakes chapter) was the starting point for a long but happy search for the perfect brownie. This one was only wheeled out on very special occasions at home - a luxury bake if you will. Mind you, those occasions seem to have been quite frequent, judging by the stained and much used page (the fact that flapjacks occupy the opposite page in the cookbook also accounts for much of the staining - another favourite of mine).

I'm planning to create a page in my blog devoted entirely to my favourite recipes. As I'm currently on holidays, it might be a few weeks before that gets going, so in the meantime I thought I'd share this old favourite. A fabulously more-ish chocolatey morsel, the brownie component is more cake-like in texture than squidgy brownie, but this works as a brilliant counterpoint to the icing. The gooey chocolate fudge icing is poured over the brownie once it's baked, taking it from average tray-bake cake to a spectacular special (any!) occasion treat. Given enough time, the icing will set and you can cut nice, neat squares, though I'm not always patient enough (witness this photo from my blog post in June, with the brownies featuring as a surprise birthday treat for my youngest sister). 

The original recipe (as with the other sweet recipes in the Hamlyn book) was written by the inimitable Mary Berry, so is as tasty and reliable as they come. I tweak it slightly now, adding a smidge of coffee to boost the chocolatey goodness and using butter instead of margarine (the latter being de rigueur in the 70s). If you're intending to give these a go (please do!),  use a very good quality cocoa powder if you can. Green & Black do a brilliant organic one that has a fabulously rich, dark colour and an intense chocolate flavour (it can be hard to get as Tesco have stopped stocking it, but most health shops have it, as does the wonderful Fallon & Byrne if you're in Dublin). Cadbury's Bournville cocoa just isn't the same but if that's all you can get, it will certainly do (after all, it's what I used for years before anything else became available). Finally, don't over-bake the brownie (25 minutes in my oven is plenty although the original recipe is for 35 mins, so be sure to check it after 25 mins). You'll know it's done if the top springs back when you gently press it; or use the skewer test - insert a skewer into the middle and if it comes out clean (i.e. no crumbs / batter on it), then it's done. 

So here you are, one recipe for chocolate brownies with a fudgy icing. One small caveat - the original recipe is in imperial measures rather than metric, which I still use when the recipe calls for it as my kitchen scales does both (most do actually). The next time I make these, I will convert to metric and check the measurements, but I wouldn't like to do it now and lead you astray with a dodgy recipe. If you can cope with ounces rather than grams for now, then this is a quick, easy and delicious recipe, so bake and enjoy!

Birthday baking bonanza

I awoke this morning with a very muggy head (it's still not terribly clear, so apologies if I begin to ramble), the result of a weekend of excess followed by a bracing mountain hike to redress the balance. No.3 Sister turned thirty on Friday and as she is the baby of the family, her arrival into proper grown-up territory required much celebrating and, needless to say, alot of baking.

 

It began on Friday morning with a basket of pretzels still warm from the oven, as requested by the birthday girl following the success of the trial batch earlier in June. For those of you looking for an update on the bicarbonate versus caustic soda bath for the pretzels, I confess that I haven't quite gathered the requisite courage to face the caustic version. An Austrian colleague of No.1 Sister assured her that she'd never heard of anyone using caustic soda and since I've had no complaints on the quality of the pretzel, for the moment I feel if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Besides, I still haven't purchased the necessary safety equipment (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!).

 

 

There was a brief interlude in the baking schedule when No.3 Sister high-tailed it down to Cork to hear The National play (lucky, lucky girl). Cinderella here stayed behind to make sure there was plenty of birthday cake for her return on Sunday afternoon. I planned to bake a Lemon meringue layer cake, sandwiched with cream and lemon curd, to be eaten after the birthday dinner. This was one of only three cakes approved by my extraordinarily fussy sister. She's not a huge cake fan, unless it's something very simple, classic and not very rich. As this cake incorporates two of her favourite things- sponge and meringue - it passes the test. Happily, it's also an impressive sight on the cake stand, birthday candles ablaze, and thus perfect for such a big celebration. The cake was delicious after the lovely dinner Mam made (a very tasty meatloaf with chickpea and tomato sauce), with the tangy lemon curd the ideal counterpoint to the sweetness of the meringue, the buttery, lemon sponge and the richness of the cream. The only complaint from around the table was that I should stop taking photos for my blog and just dish up the cake already (seriously, I barely escaped with my camera intact).

Although the cake plan was approved and in the works (the lemon curd was made in advance on Saturday), I felt there was a brownie-sized gap in the Sunday celebrations. We were all descending upon the parents early afternoon for coffee and a glass of bubbly to toast the birthday girl on her return and since the cake was for after dinner, later that evening, something else was required. As mentioned above, No.3 Sister has no love for decadent, rich, 'fancy' cakes (her word), so I turned to the 1970s All-Colour Hamlyn Cookbook, the go-to recipe book of our childhood, with all the family cake favourites on which I honed my skills. The chocolate brownie in this book is more cake-like than the dense, moist brownie more commonly found today and is not over-poweringly chocolatey (with cocoa rather than melted chocolate in the mixture) - so far so blah, I hear you say. What makes this brownie particularly special and more-ish though is the gooey, fudgy icing that is poured over the top and drips down over the sides. In theory, you could give the icing enough time to set before you cut the brownie into squares, so that there's no dripping and a neater finish. In practice, the temptation to cut, serve and eat is frequently too much (as proved the case on Sunday - witness the icing cascading over the edges of the squares in my photo).

 

All in all, the birthday celebrations were a great success, though the cake and bubbly hangover made yesterday's hike to the top of Djouce mountain in Wicklow quite a bit more painful than it needed to be. Fortune smiles on the brave, however, and in addition to our picnic sandwiches, we had the left-over brownies to fortify us before the march back down. I can think of nothing better than eating a brownie while sitting on the top of a mountain, with the world spread out at your feet and the sun (finally) peeking through the clouds. The perfect end to a lovely weekend.

Could this be love?

Oh dear, I think this could be it and if this is indeed Brownie Love, then it might be time to say goodbye to my waistline. For the first time in my brownie history, I went back for seconds. Granted, the second brownie was consumed the following day and yes, I'm aware that doesn't sound terribly gluttonous. But this is me (notoriously fussy and not a glutton) and we're talking about brownies (previously established as not a favourite). My sister, on the other hand (long established as the family glutton), savaged a second one on the spot.
 

These just seem to hit every note: soft, fudgy brownie, salty/sweet caramel, intense chocolate taste and crunchy salted peanuts. Luscious squares of chocolatey, caramelly, peanutty goodness. As things currently stand, I'm looking forward to a third one over coffee tomorrow (such greed, I hear you say!). If this isn't love, then at the very least, this is a serious case of Brownie Infatuation. I'm smitten! I might just have found my perfect brownie. Could there be anything better than this?

Bank Holiday Brownies

Choc & cream cheese brownies

Is there anything nicer than the prospect of a long weekend stretching out ahead of you? I will finally have the time to try out some salted peanut, caramel and chocolate brownies, inspired by a recipe that I spotted on Food Network UK a couple of weeks ago. Full disclosure Ladies and Gentlemen: I'm not a huge fan of the brownie. I love cake, I love chocolate, but brownies? Meh! Not so much. Stubborn as I am, I have refused to admit defeat and have long been searching for the perfect brownie recipe. A yummy chocolate and cream cheese brownie by the French patissier Eric Lanlard has come close and now holds a firm place in my repetoire.

 

And yet, as delicious as these are, I feel I have more love to give, if only I could find that perfect brownie. Lady Readers, think of the eternal hunt for that perfect bag or those perfect shoes that you know simply MUST exist. Gentlemen, I refer you to Frodo's struggle to get the ring to Mount Doom - my brownie quest has been no less arduous. (Apologies for the stereotyping - I myself am a lady and also a life-long Tolkien fan, but I didn't feel the boys would get on board with the shoes and bag metaphor). Anyway, I digress. Back to the matter at hand: Is the salted peanut, caramel and chocolate brownie The One? Come the end of this weekend, I will have my answer, but if the peanut/caramel combo fails me, all suggestions for the Perfect Brownie Quest, Part II will be gratefully received!