Brilliant brownies TOM KERRIDGE’S PODCAST EXTRA
In our BBC Good Food Podcast, Tom shares his top tips for making one of the nation’s favourite sweet treats
Abrownie 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.
Create layers of lavour. You can flavour a brownie with lots of di erent 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 di erent angles and surprise you. Dark chocolate – 70% and above – is
always the best for 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 a ects 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 sou és 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.