I did a silly thing the other day. A friend came by with the gift of a bag of chestnuts after a recent chestnut picking trip to the Blue Mountains. (How exciting that the season is finally upon us!) I had so many grandiose plans for those shiny little beauties. But first, B showed me how to have a proper old fashioned conker fight. Then, after two chestnuts were suitably destroyed in a highly unskilled contest of extremely random proportions, I set about cooking and painstakingly peeling every single nut left in the bag.

Unfortunately, when it came to cooking a large portion of the peeled chestnuts in order to transform them into a puree, I committed a cooking sin : I walked away from the stove. Yes, not-watching-the-pot-on-the-stove. That ole chestnut!

*sigh*

The pain of losing all those chestnuts (and the frustration of having to scrape a burnt pot) left me in no mood to pursue plan A. We had the remaining chestnuts that evening, in a sauce, with potato gnocchi (a Locatelli recipe). Having shelved my chestnut ideas for dessert, I decided to make something comfortingly chocolate instead.

This chocolate brownie surely scores points for being the ultimate in brownie decadence. A brownie, with a baked layer of chocolate cream reminiscent of chocolate brulee, topped with a shiny chocolate glaze. The original had an additional chocolate decoration on top but since I didn’t have the necessary ingredients for it, I omitted that component.

As this dessert is quite rich, I would recommend halving the recipe and making it in a rectangular baking tin with dimensions roughly similar to 18 x 25 x 4cm. It is pretty complete on it’s own and doesn’t even require the garnishes I have included. Cut the resulting brownie into small fingers and share with all the chocoholics in your life. Especially the ones who bother to bring you bags of chestnuts which you subsequently turn into cinder.

[Update : To anyone making the recommended 1/2 recipe, note that your brownie layer will be thinner than mine because I forgot to reduce the brownie component of the recipe when I made the mix. You can proceed with a full brownie recipe, but a 1/2 recipe will probably make for better eating, because you will get a better chocolate cream : brownie ratio. If you do a 1/2 recipe for the brownie component, make sure you reduce your baking time accordingly.]

Chocolate Brownie :
(serves 10 – 12; from Dessert by David Everitt-Matthias)

for the chocolate brownies :
2 eggs
175g caster sugar
240g bitter chocolate (64% cocoa solids)
150g unsalted butter, melted
seeds from 1 vanilla pod
20g cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
60g plain flour
100g hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and finely chopped [I used macadamias]
100g bitter chocolate (71% cocoa solids), finely chopped

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. Put the 64% chocolate in a large bowl and melt over a pan of simmering water or in a microwave. Stir in the melted butter and vanilla, then fold in the egg mixture. Sift together the cocoa powder, baking powder and flour and fold them in too. Add the nuts and chopped chocolate, then transfer the mixture to a grased and lined 12 x 36 x 4cm baking tray and place in an oven preheated to 180’C. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, until just cooked but still a little soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and leave to cool while you make the chocolate cream.

for the chocolate cream :
400ml double cream
400ml milk
140g egg yolks (about 4)
100g caster sugar
500g bitter chocolate (71% cocoa solids), chopped

Bring the cream and milk to the boil in a heavy-based saucepan, then remove from the heat. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together, then pour on the cream, whisking to combine. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook gently for 2 minutes. Put the chopped chocolate in a bowl and pour on the cream mixture, whisking until the chocolate has dissolved. Pass through a fine sieve. Press the edge of the brownie against the sides of the tin to make sure there aren’t any gaps, then immediately pour on the warm chocolate cream, leaving a 2mm gap at the top of the tin for the glaze. Place the tin in an oven preheated to 150’C and cook for 20 – 25 minutes, keeping your eye on it. The cream should be just set and wobble very slightly in the middle. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 3 – 4 minutes and then stretch a piece of cling film over the tin; this will allow the cream to finish cooking in its residual heat. When it is completely cold, place in the fridge for 1 hour.

for the chocolate glaze :
150ml water
175g caster sugar
55g cocoa powder
125ml double cream
2 1/3 gelatine leaves
40g bitter chocolate (64% cocoa solids), chopped

Put the water and caster sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Whisk in the cocoa powder and cream, bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 10 minutes.

Soak the gelatine in cold water for about 5 minutes, until soft and pliable, then squeeze out all the water. Remove the pan from the heat and add the gelatine, stirring until dissolved. Leave to cool for 3 – 4 minutes, then pour on to the chopped chocolate, whisking until it has melted. Pass through a fine sieve and leave to cool.

Remove the brownie from the fridge and spread a layer of the cooled glaze on top, smoothing the surface so it is level with the top of the tin. Return to the fridge to set.

To serve, carefully remove the brownie from the tin and cut it into portions, using a warm, wet knife.

(PS: I forgot to mention in the previous post that I have finally joined Twitter. My one concession to a life otherwise free from Mybook/FaceSpace blah. I’m not sure if I will actually use it much. In fact, I barely know how to use it at this stage, but I thought I would sign up anyway, and see how things go from there).

So. I’ve been in a bit of a mini baking frenzy recently. The restaurant was closed for a few days to do some renovations (the floor in the hot part of the kitchen is badly cracked and split, for example), and I gleefully seized the opportunity to absolve myself of any responsibilities for those days (excepting having lunch in the city with a friend who is newly engaged) and barricaded myself at home with bags of flour and sugar. I even piked out on the Work Christmas Party, which is pretty bad of me I know.

But I promise you I have been using the time wisely.

November seems to be shaping up to be Love-Helen-Month in the Lemonpi household. I saw Helen’s post about her award-winning chilli recipe and made a lunge for it immediately. The boy loves chilli, you see. I make a batch of it on a vaguely regular basis. However, I’ve always thought in the back of my mind that my basic recipe could be somehow improved.

Helen’s recipe, I think, let me in on a few important secrets. The use of roasted garlic and chillis, for example (remembering the smell that filled my kitchen while the garlic was roasting, still makes me smile). The hand-cutting of the meat (as opposed to using ready-made mince, which is often minced too finely for what chilli should really be like) and that final flourish : a tiny bit of bittersweet chocolate stirred into the pot at the end, to enrichen it. All these and more, are what have made a big difference so far.

For this first attempt, I was forced to substitute a few ingredients based on what I could find on the day. Those pesky peppers, for example. Instead of habaneros, I used jalapenos, which are pretty hot, though I think they are probably a bit limp-wristed in comparison to habaneros. I also eschewed dried kidney beans in favour of black beans, which I had a big packet of. (A massive packet, in fact. Beans to last me for days. Beans I could be a bean-llionaire with, if ever adzukis, chickpeas, limas and turtles became the new currency.)

Cooking your own beans instead of using the tinned stuff is great especially if you happen to have the time to do it. Soak the dried beans in cold water the day before and the next day, bring them up to boil in plenty of fresh water, then simmer until cooked. Soaking the beans shortens the total cooking time and is apparently also the key to avoiding beans being the notoriously musical fruit we all know and love. You can also throw some aromats into the pot while the beans are simmering, to boost the flavour (and season with salt towards the end of the cooking time), but I skipped this step because I was planning on using part of the batch for some black bean brownies.

Yes, you heard right! Black.Bean.Brownies.!

It’s not often I find myself having time to bake from other blogs, even though I have tons and tons of bookmarked recipes, and I certainly never thought I’d find myself baking vegan, but I’m a big fan of Celine’s beautiful blog and lately I haven’t been able to take my mind off those tempting bites she offers up, like pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and black bean brownies.

These brownies were fun to make (you could say it was almost liberating, not working with eggs and butter for a change!) but are by no means the perfect brownie. However, I can see where they are heading, and Celine promises that an even better recipe is on it’s way, so keep an eye out for it!

In the meantime, B is due back from San Francisco soon. I’ve got the dinner and the dessert prepared. All I need now is the boy. 🙂