Tuesday, October 18, 2011

TWD: Ginger Jazzed Brownies

We have a love for all things ginger in this house. We use ginger syrup on our pancakes. We sprinkle ginger sugar on our toast. My kids eat candied ginger as a treat. And, you can certainly never go wrong with chocolate or brownies. I've put the two together a number of times with great results. This was no exception.


I started out with a bit of difficulty because as I began to bake, I realized that I was out of unsweetened baking chocolate. So, I went to my handy substitutions bible. To replace one ounce of unsweetened chocolate, you substitute 3 T. of cocoa powder and 1 T. butter. Ok, I can do that. Then I realized that the the ratio of unsweetened to bittersweet chocolate was opposite what I thought. Lucky for me, I found a second substitution - remove 3 T. of sugar and 1 t. of butter for each ounce of bittersweet that you add in. Fingers crossed that this was going to work out!

The third substitution was because I got lazy. Instead of going all the way into the basement fridge to get my knob of ginger (I store it in sherry, which by the way is fabulous for cooking once the ginger is gone), I used 1 t. of dried ginger, and I diced up about a quarter of a cup of candied ginger and stirred it in.

I cheated on the pan prep. A simple spray of Everbake did the trick just fine. Mine baked in about 30 minutes.

After they cooled came the moment of truth. Did all the substitutions work?


I'll take that as a YES! The Boy really loved them. The Girl did as well, but she was at swim team practice while I was taking pictures, so her thumbs up came later. He made a scale of how gingery the brownies were. On a scale of "no ginger" to "tons 'o ginger", these came in just below neutral or medium. We'll see tomorrow how much the ginger flavor has intensified.


I love the texture on these. They aren't gooey, but they have a bit of a fudginess. They aren't cakey, but there's a bit of a spring when you bite into it. I can certainly see making these again.

Thank you Hindy of Bubie's Little Baker for choosing the recipe this week.

9 comments:

Peggy said...

They look delicious!! I just personally do not care for ginger that much. I love brownies tho!

Kayte said...

Posted at 1:00 a.m. is that right??? Good golly. lol The brownies look great, the little leaf plate is so cute, and The Boy is getting more handsome each and every day. Love to hear about all the subs, etc. as I learn so much reading all that...who knew that about all that chocolate business? Not me, so thanks! Have to try that ginger in the sherry trick as well.

Katrina said...

Great substitutions. I was almost out of unsweetened chocolate, but made them on a day when I happened to be going to the store, so I just got more.
Though I couldn't really taste the ginger, I've decided something. I'd rather have a little chocolate in my ginger goodies (cake, cookies, etc.) than a little ginger in my chocolate. ;)

alvarosa said...

Ginger in sherry? Sounds great, both for baking and cooking!

Jessica of My Baking Heart said...

Beautiful brownies - love the photos, too! :) So cute!

steph- whisk/spoon said...

i like that official ginger meter scale...very scientific! i thought of adding some candied ginger bits to the batter too...didn't do it, but sounded like a good idea.

Cakelaw said...

LOL - it seems that the boy didn't mind the substitutions at all!

Hindy said...

Excellent list of substitutions! I knew there'd be a happy ending. Chocolate is so versatile. Thanks for baking with me this week.

Unknown said...

I loved this post! I learned how to substitute chocolate, a better way to store my ginger (freezer = freezer burn), and that ginger chart was too cute. Oh, and the brownies look great too!

BTW, how long can you store ginger in sherry? Do you peel it first?