Posted: 25 Sep 2014 by David Lebovitz
The French do a lot of baked goods
very well. if you’ve been to Paris, you don’t need me to tell you that with
over 1300 bakeries in Paris, it’s not hard to find a pastry or baked good on
every block that will be more satisfying than you can imagine.
One of the rare baked goods that the
French haven’t quite mastered are les
brownies. If you see them in bakeries and try one, you’ll find
they’re often on the pas humid
side. I’m not sure why, because they’re simple to make, and don’t require any
special techniques: You just stir everything together, scape the batter into a
pan, and bake them. The only astuce
(cooking tip) is that it’s important to watch them like a hawk, taking them out
of the oven at the point where they’re still going to be soft and crémeux à l’intérieur.
In August, we were visiting some
friends who live on an organic farm in the Poitou-Charentes, and after dinner,
Hélène, presented us with a large tart-like creation that looked like a big,
flat chocolate cake that she’d baked up in between her other chores. I was told
they were les brownies,
but hers were different. In addition to a little bit of coconut that was added,
which gave them a slightly elusive tropical flavor, they were moist and
uber-chocolaty. I couldn’t keep myself away from them.
The French don’t usually snack with
the same fervor that Americans do (Romain’s father was once shocked to learn
that I ate between meals), but I spend a good part of my day picking at any and
all desserts that are within arm’s reach. And when everyone else was out in the
fields down on the farm, weeding and working on hedges, I stayed back in the
house, reading in a comfy chair — and found myself circling back around and
around the pan of brownies, cutting off une
lichette (a sliver), to help myself.
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