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Mocha brownies with coffee bean and pistachio bark
Serves 15 Cakes, Bread and Pastries
Ingredients
- 225g 70% dark chocolate
- 41/2tbsp freeze-dried instant coffee or espresso powder
- 1tbsp coffee essence, Camp coffee, or coffee liqueur
- 127g salted butter
- 41/2tbsp double cream
- 4 eggs, plus 2 egg whites
- pinch cream of tartar
- 127g golden caster sugar
- 115g ground almonds
- 30g ‘00’ flour
For the coffee chocolate bark
- 100g 70% dark chocolate
- 1tbsp finely ground coffee beans
- 15g pistachio nibs, finely ground
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C F Gas 4. Grease and fully line a 17cm x 26cm x 4cm deep tin.
Put the chocolate, coffee, 2tbsp hot water, coffee essence (or liqueur), butter and cream in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water (don’t allow the bowl to touch the water) for 5 minutes. Remove the bowl and stir to melt completely.
Separate the eggs into 2 large bowls, then add the extra 2 whites to the whites along with the cream of tartar. Whisk until soft peaks form. Add half the sugar, 1tbsp at a time, whisking well between each addition until stiff.
Add the remaining sugar to the yolks and whisk together until creamy and mousse-like. Fold in the ground almonds and flour, followed by the chocolate mixture. Fold in about a quarter of the whites to loosen the mixture, then carefully fold in the remainder a little at a time (to keep the volume) until no trace of white is visible.
Spoon into the prepared tin and cook for 20-25 minutes until just set in the middle and beginning to crack on the surface. Remove but leave the oven on. Cool on a wire rack, then lift out with the help of the paper. Cut into squares.
Meanwhile, cut a piece of baking paper into a square approx. 30 x 30cm, scrunch it up and dampen under the tap, squeezing out as much of the residual water as you can. Open it out (but don’t over-flatten, as you want the crinkles to remain). Put it on a baking sheet and dry in the oven for a few minutes.
To make the bark, break the chocolate into a bowl, then add the ground coffee beans and melt for 5 minutes over a pan of barely simmering water (don’t allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Once melted, stir well.
Evenly dust the baking paper with the ground pistachio nibs. Spoon over the melted chocolate, spreading it out to an even thickness, then transfer to the fridge to harden.
Gently ease shards of the chocolate from the paper and decorate the brownie squares so the crinkly pistachio-dusted side is uppermost.
This recipe is taken from the April 2022 issue of Food and Travel. To subscribe today, click here.
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