Of brownies and chocolates

The recipe pack for the Brownies & Chocolate Desserts class,

10th April 2010, will be all chocolate and only chocolate.

The four recipes boast pure chocolate flavour, using

mainly Valrhona chocolates.

As of now, I have just over 12 participants for this class,

but since its a demo class, I would be able to take in a

few more names, so do email me quick at

katsncakes@gmail.com to register.

What's a chocolate menu without a brownie

I will be demonstrating 2 brownie recipes - one in the cupcake version,

and the other a cheesecake version.

The latter, Brownie Cheesecake, has a fudgy brownie bottom

and a cheesecake layer on top. For the fudgy brownie fans,

Indulge in a rich chocolate loaded brownie, by baking

just the bottom crust and omitting the cheese layer.

It's a 2-in-1 recipe, yummy enough with or without

one or the other.

The Brownie Cupcake has a velvety texture and rich with deep

chocolate flavour. It has the flavour of chocolate cake and a brownie

crust at the same time. The crusty top keeps the chocolate texture

underneath moist and fudgy.

I would prefer to minimalise the frosting to be just sitting at the

centre of the cupcake, so as not to rob the rich chocolate

flavour underneath.

Of the four recipe, I would say the most challenging would be

Molten Chocolate Cake. Not that it was the most difficult, but it need

2 methods to achieve the perfect molten state.

A bit of history, the Molten Chocolate cake is the most disputed

dessert with famous chefs claiming rights to the invention of the cake.

It is an underbaked chocolate cake, resulting with chocolate

pudding-like centre. It now is a popular dessert, listed on

most restaurants' menu and comes with several names -

(Lava cake, Chocolate Fondant, Warm Chocolate cake).

I prefer the name 'molten' which describes it well - liquified

by heating.

Molten Chocolate cakes are best served warm. The batter can be

prepared in advance and kept for a few hours or up to a day in

the fridge, and requires just a short baking time, so as to preserve

the molten centres.

I use Valrhona 62% for the Molten cakes. Any lower percentage

chocolate, would risk it being a bit too sweet and lost its

chocolatey-goodness flavour.