Brown Town Throwdown: Part Deux

Note: This post is back to being only in English because any French person should know how to make crème anglaise or ganache already... Or buy it at Monoprix. :P

Baking several batches of brownies leads to a rather interesting question: What do you do when you've got several kilos of leftover brownies in the house? The first thing, of course, is to unload your chocolate goodness on everyone you know. Then give brownies to them. This week, colleagues, friends, bartenders, neighbors – pretty much anyone in Paris lucky enough to know us – were treated to all three kinds of brownies.

Despite claiming brownie supremacy for our own recipe, nobody seemed to care which one they got. Each sample got ingested quicker than a pile of Colombian "powdered sugar" cookies at a Lohan Mother-Daughter Fundraiser. Real brownies really are that rare in Paris.

However, we still had a good amount of brownie left over, in spite of our sharing spirit. So we took Alannah's classic recipe for bread pudding - and used brownies instead of bread.

Bread pudding is pretty easy. Cut up your bread (or other baked good) into chunks and place in a deep baking dish. Pour a fairly standard custard over it (beaten eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla - heated moderately so as not to curdle), and place in a medium oven for 45 minutes. Pull it out, let it cool at least a little bit, and voila! Bread Brownie pudding.

This isn't bad on its own, but around this household, we like to push things a bit farther. So it was time for another battle, albeit a little one: How can we best finish off these brownies with a money shot? Is brownie pudding better with the classic crème anglaise? Or Alannah's luxurious dark chocolate ganache?

The ganache-topped brownie was a killer, through and through. A chocolate-sugar rush that would kill that quack Dr. Atkins if his carb-free ass weren't already dead. Something already rich and bold was made richer, bolder, and – we kinda mean it – deadly. The portion pictured above is probably only about 60g. Any more would be like a Mandingo Party in your mouth.

Shifting gears to the one topped with white stuff... Crème anglaise is the French term for runny custard. Which makes this version of the desert rather meta, since the bread brownie pudding is what it is because it's cooked in custard.

If you don't already know how to make a crème anglaise (believe me, one of our friends joked that it's made up from ground up Englishmen, but sometimes I think it's not a joke) and you look it up, you'll see terms like "easy to ruin," "nerve-wracking," or "it's easier just to buy it at the store."

Bullshit.

Beat the ever-loving hell out of two fresh egg yolks with about a cup of sugar and a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract (or scrape in the grains from one real pod). Bring a cup each of milk and cream to a simmer (not a boil) in a saucepan/pot, remove from heat. Temper your egg mixture with a few spoonfuls of the warm milk/cream. Then pour the mixture back into the pot (again, not on the heat) slowly while whisking. Once integrated, put the pot back over low heat, keep whisking, until everything's simmering again. Pour through a strainer into a bowl to cool. Then, once cool, pour through a strainer again.

On second thought, just go to the store. (Just kidding. Crème anglaise is like meditation. Do it calmly and it's simple and satisfying.)

Beyond the black/white contrast, one thing that makes this version of the brownie pudding great is temperature. Chill the crème anglaise, warm up the brownie pudding. Separately, of course. Then make a small pool of crème in a dish, put a serving of the pudding on top, and drizzle more crème on it.

And that's what makes this one a winner. The contrasting flavors. The differing temperatures. Light versus dark. Cool versus warm.

While Alannah and I both feel that going deep into the dark side of things is great, we're more partial to mixing it up with a little bit of simple vanilla action, to keep things more interesting.

Brown Town Three-Way

This is our first bilingual post, based upon a little challenge I threw out on Twitter the other day. You see, ever since Alannah and I moved to France, I can count on one hand how many good brownies we've had: None.

Ceci est notre premier billet bilingue, basé sur un petit defi j'ai lancé sur Twitter il y a quelques jours. Depuis que nous avons démenagé à France, je peux compter sur mes doigts exactement combien de bonne brownie on a mangé : Aucun.

When we arrived, a fellow American transplant at work told me at lunch never to order the brownie. "Here?" I asked, referring to the restaurant. "Anywhere in France," he replied. Ouch!

Lorsque nous sommes arrivés, un collegue aussi muté des États-Unis m'a dit pendant le déjeuner de ne jamais commander une brownie. "Ici ?" je lui ai demandé, au sujet du resto. "Non," il m'a dit. "Nulle part en France." Ai !

He was right, though. Nearly two years later, there's not a good brownie to be found. So imagine my excitement when I saw this tweet announcing that a French person was sharing her recipe for real brownies! Not that I needed such a recipe, but I was excited to see that the French have finally figured out how to make brownies.

Mais il a eu raison. Presque deux ans plus tard, je n'ai jamais trouvé de bon brownie. Donc imaginez mon excitation quand j'ai vu ce tweet, disant qu'une française partage sa recette du vraie brownie! Bah oui, je n'ai pas besoin d'une recette, mais j'étais ravi à voir que les français ont enfin appris comment faire la brownie.

I clicked the link and... Dammit! There's baking powder in there! That's a cake! If there's one hard and fast rule about brownies, it's that they don't contain any leavening.

J'ai cliqué le lien et ... Putain ! Il y a de la levure ! C'est un gâteau ! S'il y a un seul règle pour faire la brownie, c'est qu'elles ne contient pas de levure.

I know the French know what they're doing when they bake. They are undeniably the best bakers in the world. This is because they are steeped in tradition and are not keen on bending rules. And that's the problem. The brownie was born of a mistake. Someone forgot to put in the baking powder when making a chocolate cake and voila! There's your brownie.

Je sais que les français savent bien qu'est-ce qu'ils font avec un four. Ils sont sans doute les meilleurs pâtisseurs du monde - c'est incontournable - parce qu'ils sont trempés dans la tradition et ils ne sont pas accoutumés à casser les règles. Et ça c'est le problème. La brownie était née d'une betisse. Quelqu'un a oublié de mettre de la levure dans la pâte d'un gâteau au chocolat, et voila ! La brownie !

@ParisLovesMe said that I, then, should give her a recipe. And I said I'd make some this weekend and even take pictures. The only trouble is... I don't bake, and I rarely use recipes.

@ParisLovesMe m'a dit, donc, que je doit lui donner une recette. Et j'ai dit que je vais faire des brownies ce week-end, et je même prendrais des photos. Le seul problème est ... Je ne fais pas la pâtisserie, et j'utilise rarement les recettes.

So I turned to a couple of my go-to cooks for inspiration: Alton Brown for his scientific, purist approach to American classics, and Thomas Keller for his refined technique. Both offer what I would call an "ultimate" brownie recipe, so I would take the best of both and create my even more ultimate recipe. The figures below are extrapolated for use with an 8.5" round cake pan (because that's what Alannah brought from the US), from Brown and Keller's original recipes for 8" and 9" square cake pans, respectively.

Alors, j'ai cherché l'inspiration de deux cuisiniers : Alton Brown pour sa méthode américaine puriste et scientifique et Thomas Keller pour sa technique raffinée. Les deux proposent ce que j'appelle les recettes "ultimes", et je combinerais toutes les deux dans notre propre recette plus ultime. Les chiffres ci-dessous ont été extrapolés pour utiliser un moule de gateau rond de 8.5"/22cm (car c'est ce qu'Alannah a apporté des USA), contre les recettes originales de Brown et Keller pour les moules carrés de 8"/20cm et 9"/20cm respectivement.

	Brown	Keller	Tavallai
eggs/oeufs	215g	125g	170g
sugar/sucre en poudre	190g	260g	150g
brown sugar/ sucre foncé	130g	–	140g
butter/beurre	200g	240g	220g
cocoa powder/ cacao en poudre	125g	80g	100g
chocolate/chocolate (60% cacao)	–	120g	100g
vanilla extract/ extrait de vanille	6.5g	1.5g	4.5g
flour/farine	70g	75g	70g
salt/sel	2.5g	4g	3g
cooking/cuisson	45 min @ 300ºF/ 150ºC/th. 5	40-45 min @ 350ºF/ 180ºC/th. 6	40 min @ 325ºF/ 160ºC/th. 5.5

All three recipes ways require that you beat the hell out of the eggs and fully integrate with the sugar until creamy.	Toutes les trois recettes demandent que vous fouttez les oeufs vigoureusement, et les integrer compètement avec le sucre, jusqu'à il soit crémeux.
Alton Brown's recipe is incredibly simple: Melt the butter and mix in with all of the wet ingredients. Sift together all the dry ingredients, then fold in all of the wet.	La recette d'Alton Brown est incroyablement simple : Fondez le beurre et mélangez-le avec les autres ingrédients humides. Tamisez ensemble les ingrédients secs, puis ajoutez tous les humides.
Thomas Keller's approach calls for melting half the butter, then pouring the melted butter over the solid butter and working it into a mostly consistent, creamy mixture, with lumps of solid butter throughout. The butter mixture is then added - alternating with the sifted dry ingredients - into the egg/sugar/vanilla bowl. Chopped up chocolate chunks are added at the very end.	La méthode de Thomas Keller exige que vous fondez la moitié du beurre, et mélangez-le avec le beurre solide à faire une crème assez consistent, mais avec des petites morceaux de beurre partout. Le mélange est puis ajouté - alterné avec les ingrédients secs - dedans le bol des oeufs/sucre/vanille. Le chocolat - haché en morceaux - est ajouté à la fin.
For the Tavallai version, we went with Keller's more professional technique of folding dry goods and butter into the egg/sugar/vanila mixture. However, I used a whisk to cream the melted and solid butter together - almost whipped - for a smoother butter that marbled into the bowl. Again, the chocolate chunks are added at the end.	Pour la version Tavallai, nous avons suivi la technique plus professionelle de Keller, en mettre les ingrédients secs alterné avec le beurre dans le melange oeuf/sucre/vanille. Cependent, j'ai fouetté le beurre fondu et le beurre solide, comme une crème presque montée, pour un effet marbré dans le bol. Encore, les morceaux du chocolat sont ajoutés à la fin.

As expected with its cocoa-heavy recipe, the Brown version came out very dark, and was difficult to set in the pan because of its concrete-like thickness. The Keller batter was much more fluid, and in every step of the way, much lighter in color. Our version was exactly in the middle.

Comme prévu avec sa recette pleine du cacao, la version Brown était très foncée, et c'était un peu dificile à mettre carrement dans le moule à cause de son épaisseur bétonesque. La pâte lisse Keller était bien plus fluide, et à chaque etape, plus claire en couleur. Notre version restait precisement au milieu.

After cooking, the Brown version was expectedly dark and dense, the Keller version lighter in both color and consistency with a beautiful craquelure, and ours again in between with a mild craquelure but a beautiful two-tone coloring. The chocolate chunks remain solid and visible.

Après la cuisson, la version Brown était foncée et dense comme prevue, la version Keller plus légère et plus claire avec une belle craquelure, et le nôtre encore au milieu avec un effet craquelure bien plus doux, mais avec un effet marbré. Les morceaux de chocolat restent solides et visibles.

I "fileted" each brownie round, and we filed the rest into plastic tubs with labels. This way, we can share each kind of brownie with our friends this week to get their opinions. Don't you wish you were in Paris?

J'ai fait des "filets" avec chaque rond de brownie, et puis nous avoins classé les restes dans des boites en plastique avec des étiquettes. Comme ça, nous pouvons partager chaque genre de brownie avec nos amis cette semaine pour prendre leurs avis. Souhaitez-vous que vous étiez sur Paris ?

For the tasting, we had all three of the brownies presented in each of the ways typical of the respective chef. The Alton Brownies plain, the Thomas Keller brownies dusted with powdered sugar as they are at his Ad Hoc restaurant (and in the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook) and ours with Alannah's trademark dark chocolate ganache, which has already been titillating Parisians with its few public appearances... A total of nine different brownies!

Pour la dégustation nous avons présenté tous les trois recettes à la façon de son chef respectif. Les Alton Brownies nature, les brownies Thomas Keller époussetées du sucre glace comme servie à son resto Ad Hoc (et dans son bouquin Ad Hoc at Home) et le nôtre avec sa fameuse ganache au chocolat noir, qui a déjà titillé plein des parisiens pendant quelques apparitions au public ... un total de neuf brownies différentes !

The Alton Brownies were a dense chocolate bomb. Like having your mouth raped by a giant chocolate wang... Only you can't rape the willing. Delicious, but overwhelming.

Les Alton Brownies étaient une bombe de chocolat. Comme faire violer ta bouche par une grosse bite à chocolat ... Seulement c'est impossile de violer les disposés. Delicieux, mais saissisants.

Keller's brownies are near perfect, as you'd expect from a 3-Michelin starred chef, reminiscent of the amazing chocolate Bouchon from his bakery of the same name. However, Alannah found the powdered sugar to simply get in the way of the chocolate, and we both thought the chocolate chunks were a bit too much. Otherwise, the texture is perfection.

Les brownies de Keller sont presque parfaites, comme prevu pour un chef étoilé (3x), réminiscent de son Bouchon de chocolat de sa boulangerie-pâtisserie éponyme. Cependant Alannah a trouvé le sucre glace interférant du goût de chocolat, et nous avons pensé que les morceaux de chocolat étaient un peux trop. Autrement, la texture est la perfection.

And our version? Let's say this is the first and only time that you will hear of Tavallai trumping Keller. Our recipe truly combines the best of both, delivering the dark chocolate punch of Alton Brown's recipe, and nearly matching the excellent texture of the Thomas Keller recipe. And Alannah's ganache just puts it over the top, though it's a wholly unnecessary luxury. The flavor and level of chocolate are perfect, and a dozen grams of tweaking the butter (more) and brown sugar (less) should yield the velvety texture of the Keller brownies.

Et notre version ? Disons que c'est la première et seule fois que vous entendez que Tavallai a battu Keller. Notre recette combine le meilleur des deux autres recettes, livrant le coup de chocolat de la version Brown, et presque appariant l'excellente texture de la recette Thomas Keller. Et la ganache d'Alannah est vraiement extra, mais c'est un luxe complètement inutile. Le goût et le niveau de chocolat sont parfait, et un dizaine de grams de bidouille du beurre (plus) et sucre foncé (moins) devrait rapporter la texture veloutée des brownies Keller.