Brioche du boulanger (1)

Some cool chocolate dessert recipes without butter images:

Brioche du boulanger (1)

Image by Lys*
Found the recipe here, in French. Here it is in English (I divided the ingredients by 2 just to try it!):

Preparation time: 45 min
Resting time: 11 hours
Cooking time: 20 min

All the ingredients should be at room temperature
250g flour
1 ts salt
10g fresh yeast
50g sugar
2 eggs
milk: about 40ml so that the weight of the eggs (without shell) + milk makes 145 g
125g butter, softened

Directions
Dissolve the yeast in the milk
Add in a bowl the flour, sugar, salt, eggs and the yeast in milk
Knead for at least 10 minutes to obtain a smooth and elastic dough
Leave the dough to rest for about 1H30. The dough will double in size
Push the air out and leave the dough overnight (6 to 8 hours) in refrigerator
Push the air out again and shape the dough roughly, and let it rest for 15 min
Shape the dough (braided brioche, etc.)
Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel at room temperature. Let the dough rest for 1h30 to 2h, it will double in size again.
Brush the dough with an egg (optional)
Bake it for at least 20 minutes 190°C
Once cooled down, you can spread some frosting, and top it with flaked almonds

You can also add chocolate chips or raisins to the brioche, after the first rise (step 5)

cake, iced

Image by postbear
chocolate cake made for a friend’s birthday. it really is time to invest in a second set of springform pans since i used the medium- and small-sized ones to bake the two larger cakes here, and a large ramekin to make the smallest cake. originally i was going to tier them as shown, but changed my mind for no good reason. i ended up cutting the largest cake to match the medium-sized one, stacked them together, and kept the trimmings for myself to eat since i don’t generally care what food looks like. the smallest cake i split and iced, to be given to a neighbour.

this cake is one that can easily be varied in several ways, as noted below. the sugars and spices are the easiest to swap around, and the intensity of the chocolate is also something to play with, depending on what you have at hand.

as usual, preheat the oven to 350° f, sift all dry ingredients, scrape the sides of the bowl, and if, like me, you don’t have a stand mixer, be patient with whisking or the hand blender, since it will take more time and effort.

get eggs and butter to room temperature, then preheat oven to 350° f.

2 cups cake/pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups sugar (i use mostly brown or golden yellow, with a good hit (maybe 3 tbsp. of vanilla sugar, and make up the rest with white sugar. you can also weave in some leftover odd sugars in small amounts, say from that useless bag of fine fruit sugar that you have for unknown reasons (glares at pantry).
3 eggs
1 cup full-fat sour cream
1 1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract (i soak split, cored vanilla bean pods in dark rum and use that since prices have skyrocketed. top up with rum after each use, and let stew).
5 ounces melted dark chocolate, preferably 85%, can be adulterated with some semi-sweet or whatever else, in minor amounts. melt, of course, in a double boiler.
1 cup very strong coffee – this was painful, as i’m off coffee because of gut explosion evils and had to smell brewing coffee without being allowed to drink it.

sift together the dry ingredients and set aside. then butter and flour your pans (this made 1 medium and 1 small springform, along with enough for a large ramekin).

beat the sugar and butter together until airy, then add, one at a time, the eggs (i prefer to whisk these in by hand, but you can use beaters on the very lowest setting). still on low, add the sour cream and beat just until it’s fully incorporated. the rest of the wet ingredients then follow (coffee, vanilla and finally, the melted chocolate).

add the dry to the wet in stages (i do four separate pours, you do as you wish – the bowl, unless you have a cauldron, gets full to the brim). beat only until well incorporated, then add to the pans and bake for around 40-50 minutes, depending on size. the ramekin, of course, comes out sooner. test with a skewer, etc. set aside to cool completely before icing.

oh yeah, icing:

2 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup (at room temperature) butter
1/2 cup + 1 or 2 tbsp. full-fat sour cream
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp. vanilla
small pinch salt

sift the sugar and beat the butter into it until it gets too thick to do anything with and frustrates you. add in the sour cream (reserving the 1-2 tbsp. until later), beating slowly, and bang the handles of your cheap little mixer against the bowl to loosen up the solid mass of butter and icing sugar, making sure all the lumps are off the blades and become mixed in. next add the cocoa powder, sifting, of course, and the vanilla and salt. if the resulting gloop needs a bit more silkiness or liquid, add in the reserved sour cream.

ice the cake – since mine were gifts, i tried to do a presentable job of it, using wax paper liners and everything (i was going to sift on a pentagram, but ran out of patience and had to clean up). you’ll likely wind up with extra icing, which freezes well (and i added some to the crumbs and cutaways).

as i said, vary the spices all you like, and change up the sugars. i’d cut the sugar by 10% or more for a cake made for myself, and that won’t affect the basic chemistry. the cake made with less sugar using all 85% chocolate is terrific, and i change the icing for that to one made with melted 85% block chocolate, but it’s a bit intense for some.

the neighbour i made the small cake for just ate it as we sat on the stairs, so the cake has one accolade so far.

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