A Close Brush with Baking Disaster: Macadamia White Chocolate Brownies

I was fortunate enough to recently receive generous gifts of macadamia nuts from two different people, and I decided to use them in "Macadamia and White Chocolate Brownies" from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. The recipe seemed straightforward. 

 

You whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla, and instant coffee; fold in a mixture of dark chocolate and butter that has been melted in a double boiler; fold in sifted flour, and incorporate white chocolate (I used Callebaut Gold) and macadamia nuts. As I finished mixing the batter and prepared to pour it into a parchment-lined pan, I noticed that it looked strange -- oil seemed to be separating out of it. But at that point, the batter was made and I had invested a lot of expensive ingredients in it already. The original recipe is written to be baked in a 8.5-inch square pan. I was making a quadruple batch to bake in two 9-inch by 13-inch pans. So my mega-batch of batter included 1200 grams of melted dark chocolate, 400 grams of macadamia nuts, and 800 grams of caramelized white chocolate. I couldn't bear to throw out the batter even though I worried my efforts might end in disaster. I had to at least give the batter a chance to see what happened.

I divided the batter between my two pans and sprinkled on another 400 grams of macadamia nuts. I put the pans in the oven and make a fervent appeal to the baking gods as I shut the door.

I checked the brownies at the suggested baking time of 25 minutes and they looked like a horror show. They were clearly raw, and there was actually a puddle of an oily substance sitting on top of the brownie and bubbling up around the edges. I decided I had nothing to lose by soldiering on, so I kept baking them brownies until at least the batter seemed done. It took about 50 minutes, and when I pulled the pans out of the oven I used paper towels to try and mop up the layer of oil sitting on top of both pans of brownies. I was not optimistic about my results, but I let the brownies cool and put them in the refrigerator to chill before attempting to slice them.

The next day, the top surface of the brownies that was visible underneath the macadamia nuts looked desiccated and unappealing. But when I cut into the brownies, I was delighted to see a perfectly fudgy center revealed inside. And I was stunned to discover that in fact, these brownies were freaking delicious. They were dense, rich, intensely chocolate-y, and the generous amount of sweet macadamia nuts was decadent and immensely satisfying. I could not have produced a better tasting brownie if I had tried.

I'm pretty sure I know what went wrong. When I melted my butter and dark chocolate in the double boiler, I had some butter already at room temperature, but I had to pull additional cold butter straight from the fridge. The dark chocolate I used was Callebaut 2815, which melts very easily. All of the chocolate melted way before all of the butter, even though I had cut the butter into small pieces. The cookbook actually contains an admonition that it's very important to prevent the chocolate-butter mixture from getting too hot -- but I think that's exactly what happened to me because I had to keep heating the cold butter to get it to melt. As a result, I believe that the cocoa butter separated out of the chocolate, which was the oily substance that separated out of the batter and came bubbling out of the brownies as they baked. 

 

I definitely wish I hadn't overheated the chocolate, which presumably would have helped me avoid the problems with the oily batter, prolonged baking time, and dried out surface of the brownies. But I can't argue with the result. These brownies were well worth the investment of chocolate and macadamia nuts. And I'm grateful I didn't throw in the towel too early!

 

Recipe: "Macadamia and White Chocolate Brownies" from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi.