Category Archives: Chocolate

Jan 30 3 comments
Brownies, Chocolate, Dessert, Recipes

Dark Cocoa Brownies for Coco

finishedbrownies

I’m really not a weeper, but I have to admit to the world that I was a bit teary-eyed when Conan O’Brien thanked his band, crew and fans for their support and said goodbye to The Tonight Show. Everyone has their favorite late night host and for me, it’s always been Conan. His awkward charm and self-deprecating humor made his show a pleasure to watch. For those that may not know, Tom Hanks gave him the nickname “Coco” a few months back and I’m dedicating these dark cocoa brownies to Coco. On Conan’s last day I changed my Facebook status to “Sad it’s Coco’s last day” and a friend from high school sent me her condolences on the death of my pet. Ha! We had a good laugh about that after I explained.

Now let’s get to some brownies…and I love me some brownies. I’m kind of particular, but I think others may agree with my view of brownies. Fudgy, made with high quality chocolate or cocoa, no chocolate chips for me, but nuts are ok. I also am very fond of dark chocolate and when I saw dark chocolate brownies on The Craving Chronicles, I was jumping up and down. She used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa, but I realized I had seen black cocoa at King Arthur Flour. I added some of this black magic to my KAF order and waited for my delivery.

cocoaandbowl cupwithcocoa

They are not kidding when they say black cocoa. It is dark and once you add your wet ingredients in, it looks like you’ve made oil. And the photo shoot was no picnic. The brownies mocked me as the natural sunlight bounced off its shiny black crust. I brought these to my in-laws and everyone loved them. They taste like soft Oreos and I think they would make a killer Oreo trifle of some sort, but they were a bit cakey for my brownie tastes.  I don’t think it was the recipe since the picture over at The Craving Chronicles looked perfectly fudgy. I think it was too much black magic. If anyone has ever had the dream to incorporate chocolate in every room of the house, I believe you could grout tile with this cocoa powder. When I scraped the bowl, the batter left behind hardened and stuck. If you needed to occupy some kids, give them this bowl to lick and they’ll be working on it for days. I tweeted about my brownies and KAF suggested mixing their black cocoa with regular cocoa so that the deep cocoa is an accent. And that’s just what I did with the next batch.

bowlwithbatter spatula

batterinpan browniesinpan1

Brownie attempt #2. I used a different recipe that looked easy and the pictured brownies looked amazing. The first Oreo-like recipe was adapted from a KAF recipe and this next recipe was also from KAF for Deep-Dark Fudgy Brownies.  These were really good. So good, that I made my husband take the bulk of them to work as not to tempt myself to eat the entire batch. Marc returned with an empty container and apparently the whole office was buzzing and wondering who had brought in the “black brownies”. I tweaked the recipe a bit because I cannot help myself, so I will share my changes with you.

finishedbrownie2

Deep-Dark Fudgy Brownies

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

1/3 C. black cocoa

1/3 C. regular cocoa (I used Droste cocoa)

1 C. granulated sugar

1/2 C. confectioner’s sugar

1 t. kosher salt (or 3/4 t. regular salt)

1 C. unbleached all-purpose flour

1 T. espresso powder

1 C. toasted almonds, chopped

3 large eggs

1/2 C. vegetable oil

2 T. water (or brewed coffee)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease an 8×8 square pan.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together cocoas, sugars, salt, flour, espresso powder and nuts.

3. Add the eggs, oil and water or coffee, mixing just until smooth. Spoon the mixture into a lightly greased 8×8 square pan, smoothing the top.

4.  Bake brownies for approximately 30-40 minutes, but check early. Mine were done in about 30 minutes.  To check for doneness, stick the tip of  a sharp knife into the center and wiggle around enough to see what’s going on. If the batter under the crust is still shiny and smooth, they are not done. Put back in and check frequently If the batter is ultra-moist and crumbly looking, they are done.

5. Place pan on a cooling rack and cool for 1 hour before slicing into 16 rich brownies.

6. Raise your brownie in the air and toast Conan before taking a delicious bite.

Oct 01 1 comments
Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Interests, Recipes

Chocolate Stout Cake

stoutbundt

I tend to like adventurous ingredients and when I hopped over to Smitten Kitchen for a dessert recipe and saw that this cake had beer in it, well my decision was made right then and there. Coincidentally, I”m not a fan of beer and can count on 1 hand the number of beers I’ve consumed in my lifetime, but one commenter at Smitten Kitchen described the nutty flavor the stout added to the cake and I wanted in.

In the case of a “secret” ingredient, I don’t offer up that ingredient right away. I know a few people that wouldn’t touch something that they thought had something “strange” in it. However, Marc took great pleasure in telling everyone that this cake had beer in it. Of course, he mentioned I used Guiness, which is a bit more reassuring than imagining Budweiser in a cake. We brought the cake to a gathering of about 60  and the people that tried it seemed to enjoy it. I personally really loved it and was happy to finally make a cake from scratch that was as moist as cake from a box mix, but had a deeper and more interesting chocolate flavor. Exactly what I’ve been looking for. Do you taste a bit of Guiness? Sure, a bit, but as the commenter said, it just imparts some nuttiness. For the ganache, I substituted instant espresso for instant coffee because I had it on hand and even though I used less, it had a distinct coffee flavor and I was looking to only enhance the chocolate flavor. I’m posting the further altered recipe that I will try next time.

Chocolate Stout Cake

Slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 C. stout (I used Guiness)

1 C.  unsalted butter (2 sticks)

3/4 C. unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-processed (I used Droste)

2 C. all purpose flour

2 C. sugar

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

2 large eggs

2/3 C. sour cream (I used light)

6 oz. good semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)

6 T. heavy cream

1/4 t. instant espresso

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray a standard bundt pan well.

2. Bring 1 C. stout and 1 C. butter to simmer in large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

3. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and 1 t. salt together in a large bowl to blend.

4. Using a mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.

5. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed until the white from the flour just disappears. Using a rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.

6. Pour batter into prepared bundt pan. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

7. Transfer the cake (still in the pan) to a wire rack to cool completely. (Deb states it is important to cool completely or the moist cake may not come completely out of the pan.) Once cool you can turn the cake onto the rack for drizzling the ganache.

Ganache

1. Melt chocolate, heavy cream and coffee in the top of a double-boiler (or alternately put a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water) until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally.

2. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

This is my new favorite chocolate cake. If you double the recipe, it will make a 3-layer 8″ round cake and I think it would make a seriously delicious chocolate birthday cake. I thought that 2 cups of sugar seemed like too much and was leery about how sweet this would turn out to be. Deb has mentioned on more than one occasion that she doesn’t dig super sweet desserts, so I decided not to change the amount of sugar and I was surprised that I enjoyed the recipe as is. I might try to remove 1/4 C. of sugar in the future, only because 2 cups is quite a bit of sugar and not because this recipe needs to be altered in any way. I’ve had some good bundt cake in my day, but this tops the list.