Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/11/epicurious-has-a-video-explain.html
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What the fudge
today it was reaffirmed in me that there is no such thing as a bad brownie.
I like my brownies in the form of an Old Fashioned…
Edit: I am in two camps in all seriousness on this. If I am feeling particularly lazy, its just a box of Duncan Hines brownie mix. If I am actually feeling in the mood to bake (which beyond bread is not often) I am more on Alyssa’s side. Make a good chocolate ganache, paddle mix (no hand mixer), swirl a cutting agent into it (she used caramel, I usually use tahini or marscapone), and top it with fresh made whip cream.
I endorse the fresh made whipped cream.
It’s super quick and easy if you have a standmixer, and easy if you have a hand mixer (and really hard if you just use a whisk!).
And its sooo very good.
Takes me about 30-45min to whip cream by hand. Not worth it.
Yeah, i wouldnt recommend making it by hand. At the very least if you don’t have a stand mixer get one of the handheld ones.
Spoiler: it looks like the form of chocolate makes the difference. Cocoa power (like the level 1 chef) = cakey. Melted chocolate = fudgey (like the level 3 chef). The level 2 chef used cocoa powder but added chocolate chips in the middle, making a hybrid.
Good stuff to learn! Great tips on the right pan and prepping it, too.
45 min?!?! Honestly, I am going ask if you have a muscle/hand issue. It should only take 10 maybe 12 minutes by hand.
to @Grey_Devil 's point…cheap hand mixer works fine too. that’s more like 6-8 min.
Its a serious pain in the ass to do by hand though, regardless of how long it takes or not. I know i wouldnt bother, i’d rather spend the 20 bucks to get a hand held mixer.
I just shake the cream in a jar (with a lid on it, of course). And if there’s any whipped cream left over, you can just stick the jar in the fridge.
As for flouring the pan after greasing it—first stir some cocoa powder into the flour, to avoid winding up with white on the outside of your brownies
Took me about 30-45min with a whisk.
Did you take pics of the finished brownies? If not then hopefully next time, maybe have some pics along the way Also side note: If you could tweak or improve the recipe to suit more of your taste how would you change it? I haven’t seen the Epicurious recipe but adding a little bit of coffee works great for most chocolate recipes. Also if you (or someone else) are trying to cut down on flour or gluten there are excellent recipes that substitute it with black beans.
Photos of the final brownie were added to the bottom of the post as an update.
Helps to remember that very, very few people read the BBS vs the posts.
I was expecting to see it on instagram!
Yeah, that’s weird to me. and you aren’t in an extreme elevation zone either.
I agree with @Grey_Devil like I said above…hand mixer works just fine. It just shouldn’t take that long, but it is unnecessary to do by hand unless you are being punished/hazed by an old French chef as a 23 yr old member of the kitchen staff.
I was using a small egg whisk? I have no idea – almost an entire podcast to whip some vanila maple syrup into the heavy whipping cream.
Also, IG is pretty quite except for my ‘sleeping on the floor with Nemo’ photos.
Sounds about right
Getting the eggs to whip by hand isn’t hard per se but the layman is likely not going to have the correct technique (not saying i’m an expert, i’m probably not good at it either… i don’t know). I’ve seen a few videos where people tried this very same thing and also took forever to make the whipped cream.
Maybe 30 minutes of whisking it up will offset some of the calories.