Saturday 7 February 2015

Chestnut brownie: gluten, egg, dairy free



Getting excited is not my usual style; I'm more the water on flame type, occasionally the air around but never the oil, if you get what I mean. Unprecedented as it is, I am rather (read, really) excited about my chestnut brownie. Whilst we have had successes (or so we claim) with recipes from Larousse and Barefoot Contessa, these are tried and tested recipes from real chefs. We, on the other hand, have never had success of this scale in recipes I have created for and by myself! 

However, to caution and be water to flame is my nature and so especially deservedly here - I have not had a "real" brownie in at least two years and so my taste buds would be slightly skewed. The recipe also, by design, calls for half the usual amount of sugar and fat in normal brownie recipes and may not satisfy a palate which is more accustomed to the usual fat-sugar-salt trinity.

But unless my guinea pigs (note the plural here) were all lying to me to protect a false sense of achievement, which are very acceptable and usually encouraged dinner party manners, then the brownies are good. Real good. And "healthy" to some extent too. Recipe included after the picture.

On that belief, we ate with wild abandonment and epic satisfaction. And just this once, I, like chocolate to brownie, was oil to flame. 


Recipe:
Preheat oven to 180degrees (fan). Cream one can of 416gm chestnut purée with 170gm trex (vegetable fat) for five minutes in a large bowl. Add 170gm golden caster sugar - this results in a subtler sweetness but do increase to 250gm if you would prefer a sweet dessert. Cream together for another minute. In the meanwhile, melt 100gm high quality allergy free cocoa powder in 140ml hot water. Add 1 tbsp of instant coffee granules and 1tbsp of vanilla extract (never essence) to the mix. Mix together 45gm potato flour with 150ml water and add this mix to the cocoa mix and stir until well married. In another bowl measure out 110gm almond flour and mix in 1tbsp baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt. Both the chocolate mixture and the dry mixture can be added to the chestnut purée and folded in by hand. Bake in a 12x18 pan in the preheated oven for exactly 22 minutes (I finally got a timer and for once remembered to set it). It is most important to have brownies completely cooled before tucking in so leave to cool for ten minutes and then cover the tin with a tea towel until completely cooled and ready to be eaten. 

We served it with our homemade cashew ice cream - we apologise for being nuts about nuts. 

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