Dark Chocolate Brownies with "Candied" Chestnuts.

Does anything say cooling temperatures, red leaves, and brisk winds better then chestnuts? Those wonderful things that fall from big old trees and we roast over an open fire, but have way more purpose then we North Americans ever give them credit for.

I’m not sure I ever fully appreciated chestnuts until I went to France.

Last year I spent a month in Paris that was booked in a moment of just needing to escape and get away. If I hadn’t been  so eager to leave I might have done a little research on the weather, because 24 out of 26 days it rained. I’m not kidding. It was so grey and dismal I almost missed Vancouver, which certainly doesn’t happen often. November is not the time to visit Paris.

Unless you really love chestnuts, which fortunately, I do.

I didn’t realize until I went to Paris that you can candy chestnuts and put them in anything. You can eat them plain, you can put them in cake (gateaux aux marron glace), ice cream (creme glace avec la marron glace), anf in chocolates (marron glace avec chocolat.) Basically when the sky falls Parisiennes fall for chestnuts. So of course, I did too.

When I came back I tried to make them, and I will try again, but man oh man, this is not an easy task, and it’s one that will take some practice I think, BUT in the meantime, I can make a cheaters one and then put it in brownies and no one will know. Except you, but your alright.

Dark Chocolate Brownies with “Candied” Chestnuts

(adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Bloomin’ Brilliant Brownie recipe)

Brownies

1 heaping cup of Dark Chocolate

2/3 cup Butter

2/3 cup AP Flour

1/2 cup Cocoa Powder-use the best quality kind you can get!

4 Eggs

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 cup Packed Light Brown Sugar

Chestnuts

1/2 cup Sugar

1/2 cup Whole Chestnuts, roasted, peeled, chopped roughly.

In a small clean pot mix the sugar with just enough water to wet it, it should have the consistency of wet sand. If it’s too wet don’t worry, it will just take longer to cook out.

On high heat cook the sugar and water until it begins to caramelize. Now be careful, it will turn from light to dark very quickly. Once it starts to get auburn add in the chestnuts. It will sizzle and spit a bit, stir and stir until theirs neirly no liquid left and the sugar has crystalized all over the nuts. Put on an oven proof plate and let cool.

Meanwhile.

Preheat your oven to 350F and line an 8inch square pan with parchment on both sides. Set aside.

In a metal bowl set over a pot of simmering water on medium heat melt your butter and chocolate together.

Add in your sugar and vanilla.

Add in the eggs and stir until barely combined. Remember that eggs have a memory, if you beat them they will rise in the oven, and you want soft fudgey brownies so be gentle. Sift in your flour, cocoa, and baking powder, and then the chestnuts. Do not over mix.

Then pour that bad boy into your prepared pan and bake it for about twenty minutes, until the top has set and doesn’t wiggle but isn’t to firm. I’d err on the side of undercooked that over with brownies, personally. And then eat and eat and eat.

C

Homemade Instant Oatmeal

I wake up very early in the morning. I wake up before the sun is up and long before the busses start running in the city. I wake up and hear people talking loudly as they stumble home from big nights out. I wake up when bakers wake up.

This is not when boyfriends wake up, or at least not mine.

So I get up quietly, and do as little as possible to make noise, rattle dishes, or open drawers.

And this is all well and good except it takes me about twice as long to bike to work in the morning if I don`t eat breakfast and drink a cup of tea.

So I started making instant oatmeal.

It`s insanely easy, so easy I almost feel guilty putting a recipe for it up, but every morning when I make it I feel guilty for not sharing it.

The only things I always put in it are the oats, brown sugar and coconut, I like the coconut, it gives it a bit of a creamy texture and adds some extra protein. The nuts and fruit I put in change up all the time. I don`t like breakfast ruts.

What I do like though, is that this is not only a great breakfast for quick early mornings but also a terrific breakfast for camping, which is what I did this weekend, and it was nothing short of wonderful.

Instant Oatmeal

5 cups Quick Oats, or 1 Minute Oats

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 cup Shredded unsweetened Coconut

1 cup Slivered Almonds

1 cup diced Dried Apricots

Mix all ingredients together.

Add half a cup of mix to a bowl and add 1/2 cup of boiling water on top

You can share some with your new best friend Cornelius if you felt so inclined. He likes almonds.

And then, with all this new found energy you feel like you can climb this mountain!

Or at least survive a workday. Happy Tuesday!

Wanting to Travel...

I love going to cafes and little breakfast and lunch restaurants.

I love sweet little spots with great coffee, wonderful little baked goods, and maybe a sandwich or a salad that tastes fresh and like it was made with love.

I love the places that you don’t feel strange having a bite to eat alone, and that you can sit for an hour with a book and be very content just like that.

Which is to say that when I was in London last fall I fell madly, deeply, overwhelmingly in love with Ottolenghi.

Oh it’s just… just perfect.

It’s clean and crisp, it’s mostly white with some bright read details. It has a large counter filled with the most perfect salads. Ones like Brocolini with Chilis and Almonds, or Braised Globe Artichokes, with Broad Beans, Pink Peppercorns and Preserved Lemons. And then just past the heavenly salads are the baked goods.

The most beautiful Pistachio Cakes, dripping with rosewater icing, and Blackberry Friands, and dense and wonderful Chocolate cake you’ve ever had.

It’s the sort of place you could go everyday for a month and not try the same thing twice.

It’s the sort of place that’s hard not to fall in love with.

And fortunately for those of us not living in London there are cookbooks and a weekly column in The |Guardian for us to steal his recipes and try to replicate it at home.

Which is what I did the other day when I was in dire need of some sweets.

The recipe for these came from the Guardian and it called for blackberries but it’s to early for them here so I went with rhubarb, and then because I love rose so much I put some of that in the icing which really was wonderful.

These cakes are very moist and very rich, thanks largely to the addition of ground almonds in them. Because of that they will stay very moist for several days, so it’s a great cake to make in advance of something, or just to keep in a jar for a week and eat one a day. But they are so pretty, they would also be perfect for an afternoon tea.

Rose Scented Rhubarb Almond Cakes

4 big stalks of Rhubarb, washed and cut into 1centimeter (about 1/2 inch) pieces.

1/2 cup sugar

Cakes:

10 egg whites
100g plain flour
300g icing sugar
180g ground almonds
1tbsp Vanilla extract
⅓ tsp salt
Grated zest of ½ lemon
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and left to cool, plus extra for greasing

Icing:

1 cup Icing sugar

1 tbsp Rose water

1 tsp Lemon Juice

Preheat oven to 400F

On a parchment lined baking sheet spread cut rhubarb out in a single layer and then sprinkle sugar on top. Bake for about 20 minutes or until rhubarb is just beginning to get soft. Take out of the oven and let cool.

Turn heat down to 350F.

Butter mini bundt pans, mini loaf pans, or mini cupcake pans.

Whisk up the egg whites until they’re frothy, but not full whipped.

Add in the lemon zest, melted butter and vanilla.

Sift in all the dry ingredients and fold gently together.

Then fold in the roasted rhubarb and spoon into the prepared trays and bake until an inserted skewer comes outs with only a few moist crumbs, about 15-25 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

To make the icing mix all the ingredients together until smooth. If it looks a little thick, add in some water or more lemon, if it looks thin add in some more icing sugar.

And then drizzle them on the very tops of each, the icing will run down and leave lovely little drips around each of them.