Brownie: a mistake was never so delicious...
Let him who is without error cast the first stone. Especially if This is our kitchen facet: either because we forget an ingredient or because we don't have it, sometimes we pull imagination (and optimism) either by mistake or by necessity. The good news is that in baking, as in all aspects of life, the lapse sometimes works as a catalyst and, even, as the germ of everything.
Oddly enough, the famous brownie, which is one of our favorite desserts, and the always tempting apple tart tatin they were born by a lucky chance, showing us once again that exceptional and unfavorable situations stimulate creativity.
It happens even in the best families: in the number one restaurant in the world (according to The World's 50 Best Restaurants), from a stumble (literally), his most mediatic dessert emerged, his lemon tart.
'Oops! Mi è caduta la crostata al limone', a delicious coincidence.
"I think that pastry and even savory cuisine need more accidents that lead us to great elaborations”. Fran Segura has it clear. This sweet chef is known as the "chocolate chef" and has received several awards: he was second in the Revelation Pastry Contest at Madrid Fusión 2018, Silver Medal in the European Pastry, Best Dessert in Spain WCM (2013) and Medal Bronze at the World Cup of Cooking and Pastry in 2014.
Currently Fran directs the sweet kitchen of several restaurants and travels the world giving classes and presentations. And we have asked you to crumble us the secrets of these two desserts that were born by chance.
Fran Segura, known as "the chocolate chef".
BROWNIE: OOPS, I FORGOT THE YEAST!
The brownie –blessed mistake– emerged in 1897 in the United States because someone forgot to add the yeast to a sponge cake.
“If we look at its ingredients, we can intuit that the original cake was really good, but it would be much fluffier. If we respect your recipe, we obtain a brown sponge cake with an intense chocolate flavor and nuts. But it is its texture that makes the brownie special: between the meaty, the biscuity and the creamy, almost melting in the mouth thanks to ingredients such as butter and chocolate, which have a tendency to melt with the body's own heat”, explains Fran.
And the different interpretations of the brownie that have been appearing, and continue to emerge, since then? The confectioner from Alicante has it clear: “Sometimes we want to reinvent ourselves and distort the recipes, as in this case, when they change the dark chocolate for a white one. In my opinion it stops making sense and becomes another elaboration. Obviously there are many interpretations, changing the type of nut or the quantities, and are welcome if they have the necessary common sense, but above all if they respect a large part of the original recipe”.
Reason why he prefers to give us the traditional recipe, fully respecting its raw materials and, above all, its colour. "Although it is true that I have been modifying the quantities of the recipe until I get the brownie that I feel comfortable eating," Fran points out.
This is Fran Segura's brownie.
FRAN SEGURA BROWNIE RECIPE
Ingredients:
- 210 grams of cane sugar.
- 200 grams muscovado sugar.
- 290 grams of eggs.
- 360 grams of butter.
- 200 grams chocolate 66%.
- 170 grams of loose flour.
- 300 grams of pecan nuts.
- 360 grams of chocolate chips.
**Preparation: **
1.Mix the butter in cream with cane sugar and muscovado sugar.
2.Add the melted chocolate hot to about 45ºC.
3.Add the eggs at intervals.
4.Add the flour mixed with nuts and chocolate chips.
5. Pour into a large mold and bake at 200 ºC for 25 minutes.
6.When completely cooled, cut with a knife in squares.
THE TATÍN SISTERS AND THE THREE THEORIES
“There are several stories about the creation of this cake. They say that one of the Tatin sisters, by mistake, she caramelized the apples. Another theory holds that she forgot to put the base on and put it on once the apples were in the container and the third counts that she broke the oven and so they decided to cook them in a pan ", Fran Segura tells us.
"The last option seems the most logical -continues the chef-. In any case, this cake that appears in Lamotte-Beuvron, France, in the year 1889, It is one of the greatest successes of classic pastry. Delicate as well as gourmand, textured and chewy, it requires a certain technique and we have to mess up a few until we get the skill to execute it correctly."
For this proposal, the pastry chef decides to opt for a sablé paste base, steam the apples and, once cold, fill the tartlets and then caramelize them with more sugar.
FRAN SEGURA TART TATIN RECIPE
Ingredients:
- 6 apples.
- 50 grams of butter.
- 150 grams of sugar.
- 1 vanilla pod.
- 2 cinnamon sticks.
- 60 grams of sugar.
- 1 sheet of sablé pasta.
**Preparation: **
1.Line the rings with the saber paste and cook.
2.In a saucepan, mix the apples cut into eighths, the butter, the 150 gr. sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Cover with film and cook until apple is soft.
3.Place delicately in the tartlet and coat with the remaining sugar. Caramelize in the oven or with a torch.
This is Fran Segura's tart tatin.