Velvety Beetroot Chocolate Brownies

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If the thought of beetroot in baked goods leaves you somewhat bewildered, let me tell you one thing - whoever first used beetroot in brownies was a genius! They are velvety, super chocolatey, sweet but not excessively so and they are also quite pretty. I think they even beat the double chocolate ones and the vegan ones. And I would say they are about equally awesome as the aubergine chocolate cake. And they are adapted from a recipe from the same cookbook (Harry Eastwood's Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache). A couple of years ago a few of us in St Andrews were somewhat obsessed with this book. All the cakes in it are made with vegetables (mostly root vegetables) and the all have an amazing texture and taste even better. Most of them actually taste way better than their non-vegetable cousins.
Beets, carrots and courgettes lend these cakes structure and airiness and a sweetness that you don't really get when you are using normal sugar. For those of you who like using agave syrup for baking. I feel like the effect is similar to the one you get when you replace sugar with dark agave in a cake.
Anyhow....I made these brownies after a long day at work. When I came home I found a couple of beets looking at me wanting to be eaten but I had no motivation whatsoever to roast them so I chopped them up, stuck them in the microwave and made some brownies. And after brownie number two I felt like it had been a good day after all :)

Velvety Beetroot Chocolate Brownies (adapted from Harry Eastwood)
400g Raw Beetroot (weigh them after peeled, topped and tailed them)
100g Almond Meal
3 Eggs
220g Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
150g Cooking Chocolate (the dark kind)
70g Cocoa Powder
2 tbsp Potato Flour or other kind of starch (rice or corn will work just as well)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat your oven to 160˚C. Line a large gratin dish (approx. 27x20cm) with baking parchment.

Cut the beetroot into 2 cm pieces, place it in a microwaveable bowl with a tablespoon of water, cover with some cling film or a plate and microwave for 7 minutes (the original recipe says 10, my microwave is from the stone age (a.k.a. really slow) and whenever I have made these brownies and left them in there for 10 minutes I have ended up with mush, after 10 they are cooked through already).

While you are waiting for the beetroot, break the chocolate into pieces and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, and salt until their volume has tripled. If you are using an electric whisk, this should take about 3-5 minutes, if you are using a balloon whisk and are using your own muscle power, I am a) totally impressed with you and b) have no clue how long things are going to take so whisk away until the volume has tripled or your arms fall off :)

Drain the water the beetroot has been cooking in, then puree until smooth. A hand held immersion blender works wonders here. Once you have beetroot puree staring at you, mix in the chocolate, recover the mixture and set it aside so the chocolate can melt.

Fold the almonds, starch, cocoa powder, baking powder and vanilla extract into the eggs. Make sure you have a homogeneous mixture.

Follow this by folding in the beetroot-chocolate purée until combined.

Pour the batter into the gratin dish and smooth out the top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Allow the brownie to cool before you cut it into pieces because it breaks quite easily while it is still hot.

Milk obviously works really well here, but so does wine :)

I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week and that your Halloween costume was less ridiculous than mine (the 80s were somewhat alive). I will be back with another (yes, another) chocolatey recipe :)

Better Than Sex....

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I had friends visiting me last weekend and we kinda went on a trip down memory lane. In first year we used to have tea-parties with cucumber sandwiches, and shortcakes and lots and lots of brownies and at one of these sugar-fuelled afternoons someone who shall remain anonymous (I will love you forever for this quote though!) said the fateful 'Good chocolate is soo much better than sex'.
This recipe is dedicated to all you lovely people who I had way too much fun and waay too much sugar with :)
For everyone else, these brownies are chocolate therapy :)

Dark and Handsome Brownies
300g Really Good 75% Cocoa Chocolate (this goes for the white chocolate as well - don't waste your time on cheap chocolate)
200g Really Good White Chocolate
2 tbsp Cocoa Powder
300g Sugar
50g Dark Brown Sugar
175g Flour
5 Eggs
1 tbsp Vanilla Essence
250g Butter
11/2 tsp Fleur De Sel

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Line a large brownie tin.
Sit down with all the chocolate in front of you and stare at it for a while.
Now that you're already in a better mood, break all of it into pieces, keeping the dark chocolate separate from the white chocolate.
Melt the dark chocolate and the butter, once you're looking at a buttery chocolatey mess, take it off the heat, and add the vanilla essence.
Combine the flour, salt, cocoa powder and about half the sugar in a bowl.
Whisk the remaining normal and brown sugar into the chocolate mix. Make sure everything combines well, then give the chocolate mix some more time to cool down a bit further.
Once we're nearing room temperature whisk in the eggs. Don't overdo it at this stage.
Fold in the flour mix, then the white chocolate pieces.
Pour the batter into the brownie tin and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. The brownies will keep cooking after you take them out of the oven but you don't want to end up with a goopy mess.
These are perfect on their own. Or with a glass of milk when you get home from the lab late at night, or with your coffee in the morning for that matter :), but Alex is of the opinion that brownies only ever reach their true potential with some vanilla ice-cream...I guess I'll have to make them again ;)

Marshmallow Brownies

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Ok, before I say anything about these brownies, they are pretty much a heart attack in a cake.
If you're even remotely concerned about your weight, just don't make them in the first place!
But, if you feel like indulging a bit (or have a party with lots of guests coming up) they are a winner :)
I first started making the precursor for these in my first year at university and I don't think there was a single tea party that we didn't have them (oh the fond memories...and the sugar rush).
It's based on Nigella Lawson's Brownies from 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' which is a gorgeous book full of scarily unhealthy but absolutely divine recipes.
The idea behind this version (with marshmallows) was that I wanted brownies with marshmallow pieces inside.
Unfortunately out of the 20.000 or so marshmallows that went into the batter, only about 5 didn't just disappear into the chocolate.
BUT :) you can still taste them which is why you're getting the recipe and it's not wandering onto the 'failed attempts' pile :)

Marshmallow Brownies
400g Butter
400g Dark Chocolate
6 Eggs
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
500g Caster Sugar
250g Flour
1tsp Salt
150g Mini Marshmallows

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
Line a roasting dish/brownie pan (mine is a 25x30cm rectangle one) with baking parchment.
Melt the butter and the chocolate in a heavy bottomed pan (or if you're in a rush, heat everything in a glass bowl in your microwave (don't forget to cover the bowl) but make sure you watch it like a hawk if you do that). Once the chocolate mix has finished melting, take it off the heat, and allow it to cool for a bit.
In your main mixing bowl, beat the eggs, vanilla and sugar (try not to flinch when you pour all that sugar into the mixing bowl). In a separate bowl measure out the four and add the salt.
Whisk the chocolate mix into the eggs, then add the flour.
Stir in the marshmallows and now you're ready to pour the batter into the brownie pan.
Stick the pan into the oven and give it about 30 minutes.
Personally I prefer these once they're actually cold because something amazing happens to the texture but that might just be me. But whichever way you end up eating them, they are always amazing with some vanilla ice-cream.

Raspberry Brownies

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Over the last few years I have been complaining about not having anywhere to grow herbs to cook with - if I have to make the trek down to the garden I'm not gonna use them (I love fresh herbs but I guess the love is not quite THAT strong) and everything we try to grow on our kitchen table just seems to die within hours of you putting it there. So when I was staying in Berlin I got serious balcony-envy at Judith and Mimi's place. Apart from lots and lots of fresh herbs they were growing the most amazing strawberries on their balcony (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the tomatoes!!!). One evening we were having dinner with their neighbour Daniel and the conversation moved to the raspberries he's growing and how they're all amazingly amazing. Thinking of raspberries (while having one of Judith's amazing peanut brownies) got me excited about how well raspberries would go with brownies. Here's the end product :)

Raspberry Brownies
200g Butter
200g Good dark chocolate, broken into pieces
150g Wholegrain spelt flour
100g Buckwheat flour
200 - 250g Caster sugar
A pinch of salt
1/2 Vanilla pod
4 Eggs
250g Raspberries

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
Melt the butter and the chocolate in a small saucepan and let it cool slightly.
Put the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, add the chocolate mixture and mix until it's well combined. At this point you could try what you've got to see whether it's sweet enough. I prefer them with 200 grams of sugar but if you've got a sweet tooth you might want to go for 250.
Mix in the eggs, make sure they're properly incorporated, and add the raspberries.
Find a brownie tin (mine has reappeared, oh the joy!), pour the batter in and bake the whole thing for about 18-20 minutes. Since the raspberries are so juicy I baked mine until they were rather well done (so while you don't get the normal gooeyness that way they're not a complete mess the next day).
Make your labmates love you by sharing them :)

Vegan Brownies

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It's been a while since my last post. I have been skiing and then I spend a week in Warsaw pretending to know things about programming where I had some amazing cheesecake
But now it's Lent and I'm doing my usual 'let's go vegan for 40 days' spiel. I admire everyone who can stick to it but I normally don't have the willpower to keep going. 40 days is about as long as I can keep going until I feel like I'm going to die on the spot if I can't have some cheesecake or even something as simple as salt and vinegar crisps (why do they have to add milk powder to everything on this planet?)
But enough feeling sorry for myself. I made some vegan brownies when I came across two bars of Lindt chocolate in my cupboard. The recipe is based on Nigella Lawson's brownies (the best brownies EVER), feel free to replace the egg replacement with your choice of mashed up banana or oil or whatever you tend to use but I keep thinking that there is a reason the people who designed egg-replacement are being paid for it - it just works really well. Then again, that's just a personal preference.

Vegan Brownies
200g margarine
200g nice dark chocolate
egg replacement for 4 eggs
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
250g caster sugar
125g plain flour
a pinch of salt
150 or so g chopped walnuts (I sometimes use some ground almonds to replace some of the walnuts....don't replace all the chopped nuts with ground ones though....been there done that....not a good idea....)

I used a 26cm springform tin because my brownie tin has gone missing.....if you read this and have my brownie tin can you let me know? :)
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, line and slightly oil your tin and then melt the marg an the chocolate together, add the vanilla extract, the sugar and the salt. Mix the dry ingredients and then mix everything together. If you're using egg replacement make sure you don't forget the water it tells you to add. Once it's all mixed together, add the nuts and potentially some oil if it looks a bit too dry.
Pour everything into the tin and put it into the oven for about 18-20 minutes (adjust it so the brownies are as goooey as you want them (don't forget they keep cooking even after you've removed them from the oven...and there's no eggs you need to be worried about....)
Hmmm.....I think I'm going to eat some more brownies now.