Brownie suitable for breakfast?

There are nothing for breakfast tomorrow and I am not willing to buy bread today as I am doing marketing tomorrow, so I quickly took out the magazine that I have renewed  a couple of times just because I have not tried out the few recipes in it. There are 3 recipes I wanted to try in this Australian GoodFood Magazine but I only have most of the ingredients in one recipe - Triple Chocolate Fudge brownies.

Look how tempting this recipe is with this picture from the magazine.

I marked down this recipe due to the flaky top. I once baked such a brownie but I lost the recipe. However I did not achieve that and I cannot even explained what happened during the whole baking process when it is such a straight forward recipe. Perhaps I should not have meddle any single bit of the process and ingredients.

First, I replaced some white chocolate with cookie and cream chocolates I got from my Perth trip and I even reduced the amount of white chocolate. Then I used chocolate chips as milk chocolate. As the sugar is added into melted butter so I used normal sugar instead of caster sugar as I guessed they will melt anyway. I also reduced the sugar to 50g since my cookies and cream chocolate is very sweet. I also beat the eggs vigorously instead of lightly as instructed because I was thinking of adding more rising power to the brownie (LOL). Perhaps I am all wrong....

The mixture became like a dough. It did not even stick to the sides of my pot. I felt that if I did not reduce the white chocolate amount, I will get an even firm mass of batter.

I have chosen to try out fan mode again. Actually I am not too sure if the mode called "turbo" on my oven is the same as fan mode. The manual said that "convection makes hot air circulate around the food ..." so doesn't that sounds like fan mode? Anyway, halfway through the baking process, the cooking in process batter turned to this below -

The surface has alot of oil, all bubbling. I am not sure why is that so. When baking time is up, I see that the top did not achieved the flaky look, so I turn on the top heat and wanted to dry up the top. This process went around 3-5 minutes. In the end, the brownie seems kind of dry but I still did not get the flaky top. The kids like it thou. I guess it will go well with vanilla ice cream like my friend suggested. Presenting my dry top brownie :-)

After I settled the "no breakfast tomorrow" problem, now I started to wonder if this bake is suitable for breakfast tomorrow..... *sigh*

Here is sharing the recipe from the magazine (Australian GoodFood April 2011) -

Triple chocolate fudge brownies (Makes 16 Prep 10 mins plus cooling Cook 25mins)

125g cold unsalted butter, chopped

200g dark chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar (I used normal sugar and reduce amount to 50g)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 cup (185g) plain flour, sifted
180g white chocolate, chopped ( I think I used around 130g)
100g milk chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180dC or 160dC fan. Grease and line a 20cm square cake pan.
2. Place butter and dark chocolate in a small saucepan on low heat and stir until melted. Stir in sugar. Cool for 10 mins.
3. Stir in egg, then flour, and then white and milk chocolate. Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 20 - 25 mins, until firm to touch, Cook in pan. Cut into 16 squares and serve.

So simple and yet I did not make it. Haiz. I think I will find a time to try this again, follow to the perfect T (but really worried about the sugar and the sweetness).

If there are any health concious readers, the following information that came with the recipe would be helpful to you (but not me :-( ) -

In each brownie 1216 kilojoules, 4g protein, 16g total fat (10g sat fat), 33g carbohydrate (23g sugar), 1g fibre,  31mg sodium.

*phew* I managed to update my blog today with today's bake! :-)

Baking for the kids

I did the nutella cupcakes again because the kids have nothing to bring to school as snacks. This time I use the mixer, quick and easy, but the swirls of nutella are still not pretty. I find it not easy to swirl because both the cupcake batter and nutella paste are thick. Here are the results.

I went on to try Moist Coconut Cake in Kevin Chai's Easy Stir n Bake Cakes. Very nice, very tasty but really very oily. I also cut down sugar since it has white chocolate. So the next time I try, I will try cut down on oil and sugar. The cakes in this book are really easy, just mix and stir and viola, edible cake. Here's my oily cake. Look at the oily cup, it is actually waxed type but the cup is still soaked with oil.

The moist interior

A birthday cake for my boy

Got a good excuse to bake a cake, for my boy turning 5.


He did the deco himself cos I cannot manage to have it done
up before he is back from school.

Initially I thought the cake I have in mind is a non bake
chocolate mousse (ya wanted to bake this cake in mind for
some time liao) but after looking at the recipe, realise it isn't
 and was having difficulty finding one last night, so stick with
this recipe.

The recipe looks simple enough, melt ingredients, mix dry into
wet, no need mixer, I am happy. However, it took me the
whole afternoon from 1 plus to 6 to have it completed.
I can only say it might be faster if I have a bigger oven to
bake the two layers together and probably have more mixing
bowls so that I do not need to do wash up in the middle of the 
session.

Every step smooth going, no hiccups till the melting of white
chocolate (first time using) and blending it into the melted
butter for the white layer. Took quite sometime for the white
chocolate to be dissolved (ya the chocolate harden) into the
butter mixture.

The cake batter is not watery. I baked it one layer at a
time instead of 1 and 1/4 hour for two layers together as
stated in recipe, so I am lost at how long should my cake be
baked. Anyway the skewer came out clean after ard 35
minutes for both the layers.

This recipe (see below) uses little self raising flour and 1 egg
(per layer) so the cake did not rise too much, and maybe I
bake a little too long? cos the chocolate cake cracked. It even
break into several pieces when i transfer the layer to another 
base. Anyway I piece the pieces back like jigsaw puzzle and
luckily there is a frosting to be done so all can be covered up.

The most tricky part is the frosting. I whipped up the cream
to stiff stage then blend in the melted white chocolate. The
frosting changed into watery state, so I had a hard time
"applying" the frosting. The frosting did not harden even
after 2 hours in fridge. What has gone wrong? How should I do
this part? Maybe I should add the melted chocolate into the
cream then whipped it up? Any advices?

Anyway, the frosting should also apply in between layers but
I am worried that it is not enough to cover the whole cake
(must hide flaws mah) so you can only notice the little white
trickles of cream down the chocolate layer.


This cake is too sweet to my liking, and I did not even measure
my cup of sugar to the brim! Maybe it is also "sweeten" by the
frosting. My dh says the frosting taste like condensed milk. I 
suppose you can call this a very rich cake cos chocolates are
used in the layers.

有了个很好的理由让我尝试新食谱。今天做了个生日蛋糕给
儿子。食谱看似不难，但我还是第一次用白巧克力，所以还是
花了我大半天。这蛋糕有点太甜了，而且两层都有用巧克力，
所以不能多吃，会腻。我看，还是物以稀为贵。

Celebration Cake
Preparation time : 45 minutes
Cooking time : 1 1/4 hours
Makes one double 20cm round cake

Dark layer
3/4 cup plain flour
2 tablespoons self raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
125g butter, cubed
125g dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup hot water
2 teaspoons instant coffee powder (I forgot abt this)
2 tablespoons brandy (I omited this)
1 egg, lightly beaten

White layer
3/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup self raising flour
125g butter, cubed
125g white chocolate, chopped
3/4  cup caster sugar
1/2 cup hot water
2 tablespoons brandy (I omited this)
1 egg, lightly beaten

White chocolate cream
125g white chocolate, chopped
1 cup cream (I used 200 ml pack for convenience)
chocolate curls, for decoration

1. Preheat oven to 160Dc. Brush two deep 20 cm round cake
tins with melted butter or oil, line base and sides with paper;
grease paper.

2. To make dark layer :
Sift flours and cocoa into large mixing bowl. Make a well in the
centre. Place butter, chocolate, sugar, hot water and coffee in
basin or top of double saucepan. Stir over barely smmering
water until chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth; remove
from heat. Cool and stir in brandy.

3. Add chocolate mixture and egg to dry ingerdients. Stir wth
a wooden spoon until just combined; do not overbeat. Pour
the mixture into one of the prepared tins.

4. To make white layer : Sift flours into large mixing bowl.
Make a well in the centre. Place chocolate in basin or top of
double saucepan. Stir over barely simmering water until
melted; remove from heat. Combine butter, sugar and water
in a small pan. Stir over a low heat until butter has melted
and sugar dissolved. Gradually blend into chocolate. Cool.
Stir in brandy. Continue as for step 3.

5. Bake both cakes for 1 1/4 hour or until skewer comes out
clean when inserted in centre of cakes. Stand cakes in tins 10
minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool.

6. To make white chocolate cream : Melt chocolate as for step
4. Cool. Add cream, beating constantly with an electric mixer.

7. Sandwich cakes together with half of the white chocolate
cream. Cover top of cake with remainder; decorate with
chocolate curls.