Ginger Jazzed Brownies

I had a wonderful one month holiday with my sister and her family in Houston- Texas.

It was just nice just to hang around without no responisibilties, just enjoy the delicious food she made for me and also sightseeing and shopping etc......

The days and weeks seems to fly but as you all know no holiday's has to come to a end, so here I am back home.

I do have lots of pending posts but I wanted to make something in my Kitchen after a month and I thought why not indulge with chocolate and as you see that is exactly what I did, make this gooey super delicious ginger Brownies.

The Brownie, one of America’s favorite baked treats, was born in the U.S.A.— just aren’t quite sure where—although evidence points to New England in the first few years of the 20th century.

A chocolate brownie is a flat, baked square or bar introduced in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century and popularized in both the U.S. and Canada during the first half of the twentieth century.

The brownie is like a cross between a cake and a cookie in texture. Brownies come in a variety of forms.

They are either fudgy or cakey, depending on their density, and they may include nuts, frosting, whipped cream, chocolate chips, or other ingredients. A variation that is made with brown sugar and no chocolate is called a blondie.

Brownies are common lunchbox fare, typically eaten by hand, and often accompanied by milk or coffee. They are sometimes served warm with ice cream (à la mode), topped with whipped cream, or topped with marzipan, or sprinkled with powdered sugar. They are especially popular in restaurants, where they can be found in variation on many dessert menus.

Although cake-like and baked in a cake pan, the brownie is classified as a bar cookie rather than a cake. There are thousands of recipes, both “cake” types and “fudge” types. Either is perfectly correct—and delicious

iT easy to see that the brownie got its name from its dark brown color. But as with most foods, the origin of the brownie is shrouded in myth, even though it is a relatively recent entry to the food pantheon, first appearing in print in the early 20th century.

The legend is told variously: a chef mistakenly added melted chocolate to a batch of biscuits...a cook was making a cake but didn’t have enough flour. The favorite, cited in Betty Crocker's Baking Classics and John Mariani’s The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, tells of a housewife in Bangor, Maine, who was making a chocolate cake but forgot to add baking powder. When her cake didn’t rise properly, instead of tossing it out, she cut and served the flat pieces. Alas, that theory relies on a cookbook published in Bangor in 1912, six years after the first chocolate brownie recipe was published by one of America’s most famous cookbook authors, Fannie Merritt Farmer, in 1906 (and the Bangor version was almost identical to the 1906 recipe).

Now I must have had my first brownie some 12 years ago.

When i was growing up in India unlike now they didn't sell anywhere Brownies and here in Belgium they only started comming up a decade ago.

I fell in love with it when I took the first bite and I have made them before . Which was super super delicious too.

The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan book Baking from my home to yours which I love.

According to her it's Ginger, both fresh and dried , that makes these brownies slightly hot.It you want to jazz then up a bit more, glaze the top with a shiny ganache, top each portion with a spoon full of lightly sweetend giner whipped cream.

Tips she has given in the book is, In order to soften the fresh ginger before mixing it into the batter, she stir in a little sugar into the minced ginger and let it sit a while, while she work on the rest of the recipe, that is exactly what I did too.

I have given bleow the original recipe from her book, but I have written in another color how much sugar I have added, as I think every time I make a recipe from a book it is too sweet so I always less the amount of sugar and that is what I did with this recipe too.

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground giner

2 tbsp finley minced peeled fresh ginger

1 cup plus 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar ( I only add less than half cup of sugar)

4 ounces unsweetend chocolate, coarsley chopped

2 ounces buttersweet chocolate coarsley chopped

1 stick unsalted butter at room tempertature

1/3 cup light corn syrup ( I only added half)

1/2tsp pure vanilla extract

3large eggs

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F.

Line 9 inch squate baking pan with foil, butter the foil and place the pan on a baking sheet;

Whisk the flour, salt and ground ginger together.

Put the mince fresh ginger and 11/2 tbsp if sugar , stir and set aside.

Melt the chocolates ( I did in a MW) and let it cool.

Working the a stand mixer or hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter untill it is creamy and smooth.

Beat in the corn syrup, then the remaining sugar and continue to beat for 2minutes or so untill the butter is smooth agai and the sugar is incorporated.

Add the vanilla.On a medium speed add the aggs one by one, beating for 1minutes after each one goes in and scraping down the bowl as needed.

Beat for 1more minute then lower the speed and add the macerated ginger ( and any liquid) then the dry ingridients, mixing only untill the flour disapears.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and, using a rubber spatula, gentley and throughly stir in the melted chocolate.

Scrape the batter into the pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or untill an even sugar crust forms. A think knife inserted into the center of the brownies should have a streaks of moist, fudgy chocolate on it. ( I only had to bake for 18 minutes)

Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature.

When the brownies are completley cool, turn out onto a rack, peel away the foil and invert into a chopping board.Cut into 16 sguares, each roughly 21/4inches on a side.