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Brownies and Galettes
Dec. 6th, 2020 08:54 pmI have returned to my attempts to actually *use* my cookbooks! (If you're just joining us now, I have more than a hundred cookbooks, many of which were acquired secondhand and chosen on a basis of "interesting" and "eye-catching" rather than anything as pedestrian as "useful.") I did not, however, wind up using a book I haven't used before, but rather two old favorites.
Since I have made all the brownie recipes except the blondies in The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook at least once, I know I've made chocolate fudgy brownies before-- though last time I was making brownies from here, we still didn't know what-all my dietary restrictions actually were and I was making them vegan with applesauce, which is turns out to be exactly the wrong way to do it once you know what I actually have. This time I did it properly following the recipe. It's the first time in a while that I've done anything that involves melting down chocolate chips rather than using cocoa powder, and it's a lot easier than I remember it being. I need to remember that many of my early experiences with this cookbook were made much harder because I was dealing with pretty serious untreated (and for a while undiagnosed) mental and physical illness, a highly stressful life, and not a ton of experience with cooking. Doing it now that I have experience with things like making every banana bread variation recipe in the same loaf just because we can (which is delicious but such an intense flavor that you can have, like, a bite of it), this recipe is actually very simple, very quick, and very good, though next time I am definitely lining my pan with parchment paper.
Maybe next time I pick up this cookbook I'll try something not in the brownie section. I've made all the brownies, but nothing not a brownie.
Today, while looking through How To Bake Everything, I spotted a recipe for Sweet Potato Galette, which I attempted. The main problem with it is that the amount of filling called for and the amount of crust called for don't match, so it came out somewhat undercooked in the middle and then burned on top. Other than that it's quite tasty and there are a *lot* of galette recipes in there, some of which look pretty good, so I think I'm just going to spend my winter making various varieties of galette.
Also however clumsy it was I MADE A GALETTE AND I'M VERY PROUD OF THIS.
I really should try one of the cookbooks I haven't used before, though.
Since I have made all the brownie recipes except the blondies in The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook at least once, I know I've made chocolate fudgy brownies before-- though last time I was making brownies from here, we still didn't know what-all my dietary restrictions actually were and I was making them vegan with applesauce, which is turns out to be exactly the wrong way to do it once you know what I actually have. This time I did it properly following the recipe. It's the first time in a while that I've done anything that involves melting down chocolate chips rather than using cocoa powder, and it's a lot easier than I remember it being. I need to remember that many of my early experiences with this cookbook were made much harder because I was dealing with pretty serious untreated (and for a while undiagnosed) mental and physical illness, a highly stressful life, and not a ton of experience with cooking. Doing it now that I have experience with things like making every banana bread variation recipe in the same loaf just because we can (which is delicious but such an intense flavor that you can have, like, a bite of it), this recipe is actually very simple, very quick, and very good, though next time I am definitely lining my pan with parchment paper.
Maybe next time I pick up this cookbook I'll try something not in the brownie section. I've made all the brownies, but nothing not a brownie.
Today, while looking through How To Bake Everything, I spotted a recipe for Sweet Potato Galette, which I attempted. The main problem with it is that the amount of filling called for and the amount of crust called for don't match, so it came out somewhat undercooked in the middle and then burned on top. Other than that it's quite tasty and there are a *lot* of galette recipes in there, some of which look pretty good, so I think I'm just going to spend my winter making various varieties of galette.
Also however clumsy it was I MADE A GALETTE AND I'M VERY PROUD OF THIS.
I really should try one of the cookbooks I haven't used before, though.
