nowadays if someone was to say 'brownie' the most likely image would be of the baked good. i want to impart some of the spirit of the brownies into their namesakes, the (chocolate) brownie. and before you guess wrong, no i do not intend to do so with illegal substances, just go to amsterdam. for too long has the brownie been degraded, wrapped in cellophane or ubiquitous, lingering away in chain coffee shop counters, they are the most boring option. too many are dry, crumbly and just plain dull. if you are going to have cake, make sure its worth it.
but then there has always been a divide in the brownie: is it to be cakey or fudgey. for me the latter is the only way.
the brownie originated in 1893 after the Colombian Exhibition came to Chicago. Bertha Palmer, an American socialite who knew what she wanted (think Paris Hilton but a whole lot more respected), told the chef at the Palmer House Hotel in which she was staying, that the ladies should have a new dessert designed for them specifically. the two requirements were that it was to be smaller than a piece of cake and suitable to be eaten from packed lunches and thus not requiring cutlery. sadly for these women they were deprived of the brownie in its best, densest, gooiest, fudgiest incarnation, rather until 1907 with the recipe of a Maria Willet Howard, the sweet treat was on the dry, cakeish side. in Maria's recipe an extra egg and an extra square of chocolate was added to cries of delight.
it is from Maria's lead i follow. however being a bit of a magpie the plain chocolate brownie will not do. no! i refuse to. instead over the years i have made variations on the recipe to shake it all up a bit. if not i may as well resort to betty crocker.
there has been the ginger brownie in which the addition of crystallised ginger added a sophistication and healthy note (ginger's a detoxer!?); a marshmallow brownie; a chequerboard variety in which to the basic brownie tray i slathered squares of white chocolate and hazelnut spread on top; a white chocolate and rose brownie whereby i substituted milk chocolate for milkybars and then poured in a considerable splash of rose extract; and the amaretto brownie. for those of you on the marriage market i have received three proposals out of these (and not from joking middle aged men), i would recommend the chequerboard variety (especially if at a chess convention) and the white chocolate and rose, everyone wants a nigella in their life.
this summer was my friend Harriet's birthday. a key bonding moment in our friendship was over a terry's chocolate orange on a walk from camden to our university halls. i took this as inspiration. as much as i love terry and his ultimate confection, this was a sophisticated soiree that i intended to rise up to. kraft was replaced by craft as i guaranteed the chocolate/orange combination by raiding my father's liquour cabinet once again and pulled out the grand marnier.
begin by preheating the oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 4, i find that if you forget this and then have to wait once the mixture is prepared, the mixture mysteriously depletes and you wind up feeling a little sicky... line roughly a 20cm square tin with baking parchment. if you don't have this size exactly it's not the end of the world but try to find a tray that will not cause the brownies to thin out too far. in a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water melt 100g of milk chocolate with 100g of dark chocolate and 140g of unsalted butter. this will probably be sacriligous to some but i really don't feel the need to dicate the necessity of good chocolate, sainsbury's basics is actually very fine. allow the molten mixture to cool a little before stirring in 225g of sugar (you may want to try different combinations, brown sugar lends a treacly character and i did spot lavender sugar in wiatrose the other day...), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. oh and it is here you add in your defining ingredient, in this case a good slosh of grand marnier. if you are alcohol averse you could replace this with orange extract or crystallised orange peel. then whisk in 2 large beaten eggs and, vitally that extra egg of Maria's, another large egg yolk. sift in 85g of plain flour and mix for a minute to form a "gorgeous golden gleaming gloop", sorry that was just me turning into nigella. basically you want to be staring into a bowl filled with what looks like a rich brown mercurial mixture. pour into the tray and bake for any time between 30 and 40 minutes. i'd check after half an hour, insert a knife in and if it comes out clean then take out but if not then pop in for another five minutes or so. not one for subtlety i then spread marmalade over the top, after all what is it people say, you have to accentuate the positive. i used golden spread but once again this isn't a must, if i'm honest i chose it for the packaging, the black and white striped cap and then Paddington Bear's beaming endorsement. finely grate some chocolate over the surface and finito!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
i'd say she looks pretty pleased.
