BBC Good Food - 04.2020

skills

APRIL 2020 bbcgoodfood.com 117

A

brownie is so easy to

make; whack it together,

stick it in a tray and

it doesn’t really matter if it’s

undercooked. It’s not like a cake

• we’re not trying to make a
  sponge here and needing to check
  that it’s risen properly and all level.
  The beautiful thing about a
  brownie is that it’s uneven; it
  has to have that crisp top and
  a squidgy middle, but there’s
  nothing exact or precise about it.

Brilliant brownies

In our BBC Good Food Podcast, Tom shares his top tips

for making one of the nation’s favourite sweet treats

TOM KERRIDGE’S PODCAST EXTRA

For Tom’s perfect

brownie recipe,

visitbbcgoodfood.

com/recipes/salted-

chocolate-hazelnut-

brownies.

Get top tips

from Tom and the

BBC Good Food

cookery team

with our Good

Food Podcast.

Available to listen

to atbbcgoodfood.

com/podcast,or

download from

Acast, Spotify,

iTunes and podcast

streaming services.

Create layers oflavour.You can flavour

a brownie with lots of dierent ingredients;

you can put chilli in it, you could put herbs

through it (mint would be beautiful,

or infuse bay leaf in the butter as you melt

it), and salt – we all love salted caramel.

Flavours should come from all dierent

angles and surprise you.

Dark chocolate – 70% and above – is

always the bestfor making brownies,

because it has a lower fat content than milk

chocolate. The higher the fat content, the

more chance of it splitting. Milk chocolate

that you buy on the high street is often an

emulsification of cheaper fats, which means

that it’s not emulsified very well, so it will

split out at a lower temperature. Dark

chocolate is all about the cocoa mass,

and the cocoa solids, which aects how it

performs. The fat comes from cocoa butter,

not from cheaper fats. If it’s not sweet

enough or too bitter, you can always add

sugar or sweetener, or more butter or dairy.

Brownies shouldn’t wobble.It’s not

like a lemon tart where you’re looking for

it to be just set – a brownie should be solid.

To check it’s cooked, just touch it and gently

push in. If it feels squidgy, then it’s ready.

Brownies should have a crust.The

secret is to bake the brownies at a higher

temperature than you would normally

bake a cake at containing this many eggs

and melted butter. Normally, you’re trying

to just set the filling, at about 140-150C.

But with a brownie, the oven needs to be

at about 180-190C, so that it soués slightly

and creates that lovely crust on the top.

Then you take it out before it’s cooked all

the way through to make sure that it’s nice

and gooey in the middle.