Nigel Slater brownies - day 3

A revelation!  These brownies are getting better with age.  They are the Alec Baldwin of brownies.

The flavour's still super-chocolatey but the texture's getting denser rather than drying out as one might expect.  They've gone from from a 7.5 to a definite 8.1.  Magic.

Nigel Slater's brownies - day 2

I think it's important to know how a brownie stands up over the course of time.  While there's nothing quite like a still-warm brownie to make you feel that all is ok in the world, ideally you want to make a brownie that can last - theoretically - several days, for practical as well as regular-pacing-of-treats reasons.

I returned to this brownie today and was impressed.  While I still feel it's too crumbly for my liking, the flavour is excellent, and when you hit a melted chocolate chunk it really delivers on the delight front (much like the little chocolate fishy in Phish Food.)

Things I have learnt from this brownie:

My ultimate brownie will definitely have chunks of chocolate in it.
Ditto sea salt - I love a bit of salt to bring out the sweetness.

And so it begins... Nigel Slater's Very Good Chocolate Brownies

Nigel Slater is one of my favourite food writers.  His books are so beautifully written, and The Kitchen Diaries is a particular favourite.  His writing is so gentle and so precise, and his palette flawless - he never over-complicates any dish.

My friend Priya is a fantastic cook.  She too is obsessed with brownies but because she's very slim I never give her enough credit for her obsession.  She's made me Nigel's brownies before and my memory of them was positive, if hazy, so I thought they'd be a good starting point for my odyssey. 

The recipe is quite straightforward - all the usual suspects, no accoutrements.  It calls for golden caster sugar, rather than regular - and has equal parts cocoa to flour.  I reduced the sugar by 10g to 290g, and upped the chocolate chip chunks from 50g to 70g (I used Waitrose cooking chocolate as I'm a sucker for the packaging.)

First, cream together the butter and sugar, if you have a blender all the better / quicker.

Melt the majority of the chocolate

Add the eggs, plus an extra yolk, to the sugar / butter combo.

Add the chocolate chunks

and the molten chocolate

then fold together with a metal spoon, along with the flour, cocoa and baking powder, plus a pinch of salt, and you're in business.  Very simple indeed.  Today's helper, the delectable Mr. Newman (no relation - although I actually think he has shades of a young Paul Newman, no?)

Thirty minutes at 180 and you're done.

I'd take them out at 28 minutes next time, based on my oven's performance - as the outer frame of the brownies was slightly overdone.


The verdict

Very very chocolatey, good, dense and crumbly.  7.5 /10.

Nigel's brownies are crumbly, deep, dark and uber-chocolatey.  They don't offer much in the way of resistance, and personally I like a brownie that puts up a bit of a fight with my teeth.  They're dense without being fudgey (I do like fudgey).  In places they are light, but when you hit a seam where a chunk of chocolate has melted, you hit full on motherlode of dark chocolate - great if you have a cup of tea or a glass of milk to hand.

The taste and depth of chocolate flavour is great, but for me the texture is too cakey.  I think this photo is mildly misleading - it looks like the brownie is supermoist, which sadly my rendition wasn't. 

Is an average brownie better than none at all?

In my novel Pear-Shaped, Sophie, the main character, is interviewed for a job as a dessert developer.

The final question she's asked, by the scary pudding guru who later becomes her boss, is 'Do you think an average brownie is better than none at all.'


Sophie's thought process runs as follows:

What? What sort of a question is that for an interview?  Clearly this must be a trick.  Is she just finding out if I’m greedy?  Or if I genuinely love pudding, or what?  I don’t know what she wants me to say, but all I can tell her is the truth.  Well, not quite the truth – my honest answer would be ‘if you are stoned, absolutely’.  But then if you are stoned, an average brownie is transformed into a superior brownie anyway.

My truth is this: I would rather not eat a brownie than eat an average brownie.

Not because of the calories.

Not because I’m a snob.

But because for me, brownies are sacred; where they’re concerned I don’t do half measures.  In the same way that I couldn't marry a man I didn't love, or be in a relationship with someone I didn't respect, or sleep with a man who wasn't funny.


I am of the same school of thought as Sophie.  Life's too short to eat an average brownie.  I actually feel life's too short to eat an average anything.  It's not about foie gras or lobsters or money.  I'd be happy eating bread, butter and cheese every day for the rest of my life, as long as it was delicious fresh crusty bread, beautiful French butter, and any one of 1000 delicious cheese that exist.  It's about caring what goes in your gob - when you have the luxury of time to be organised about it.  Obviously life tends to get in the way more often than not.  

However, in the realm of brownies - as in the realm of relationships - I think it's important to exercise discernment and have high standards always.   You don't have to eat every brownie that crosses your path.  
Now I have bought many brownies, baked many brownies and eaten many brownies in my time.  I don't think there's a brownie you can buy in the UK that's a 10/10.  I've had some 9s - usually at gastropubs.  

But really what I want is independence.  Knowledge is power, and I want to be able to make 10/10 brownies at home, on rainy days, on happy days - basically whenever I feel like it.

To that end, I'm going to work my way through a world of brownie recipes, to try and find my brownie nirvana.  I'll write about my idea of a perfect brownie another time.  Suffice to say it does not include nuts (wrong, wrong, wrong) and does not eat like a cake.

Till next time.