jeudi, août 06, 2009

Brownies sans beurre (Butterless brownies)

Hola!

Experiment time in the kitchen today...
A colleague informed me that we could substitute butter in the brownies recipe with apple compote. Hmmm... sceptic, wonder, intrigue.
Butter is the mother of cake and baking. In general you start with butter, sugar and egg. To subsitute with apple? butter.. apple.. Hmmmm...

I can't keep my curiosity intact. I must try it and see how it goes.

I use the same Brownies recipe that I used before. Well, not exactly.
Here's the thing. I always base on used recipe, but each time I tweaked it a little here and there.

So here it goes:
Butterless brownies

Preheat oven on 180C, and grease baking pan

225g Apple compote (seriously I bought a jar of 370g net, I didn't measure it. I use 3/4 of the bottle)
100g chocolate for cooking
200g sugar
225g flour
4 eggs (3 whole + 1 egg yolk) <== this is also part of experiment
2 teaspoon vanilla essence
helpful of chopped nuts


- In a pot on low heat, melt chocolate and apple compote
- Let cool



- In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla together



- Add in the cool Apple compote+choco



- Add in nuts
- Mix well



- Pour into the greased baking pan (or baking paper)



- Put into the oven 180C for 25-30 mins (test with the toothpick/knife. when it comes clean/dry, it is ready)



The result:

Jamie Oliver style



Go-to-office style



Verdict:
It's AMAZING!! I didn't feel guilty of not putting butter in it. It's even lighter, not oily.
First thing I noticed is the top of the brownies. There are no crumbs, no cracks and not dry. Could this come from the fact no butter, or the apple effect, or the 3+1 yolk ?
What do you think?

The reason I experiment with 3+1 yolk is because from my googling, having extra egg yolk cause brownies to be fudgy and dense. I LIKE!

It's still springy like cake, but dense. However, I expect for more fudge brownies. So there are more rooms for experiments!!

lundi, août 03, 2009

Greek Salad

Summer time, this is a thirst quenching salad... Very light with cucumber, olives, tomatoes, feta and hint of pepper. So refreshing.
Eating greek salad reminds me of Bulgarian Shopska Salad. Frankly between Greek Salad and Shopska Salad, I prefer the latter. I'm not a big fan of vegies nor salads. But I could wallop these salads every day.

Here is something simple from the kitchen: