Naked Glamorous Chocolate Brownies

You know how I like to glam up my chocolate brownies, so they don't feel left out among all the uber gorgeous cupcakes, well, I was inspired by the trend for naked cakes, that seem to be so popular lately, to make a naked glamorous chocolate brownie. And here they are.

 I think these are the most glamorous of the glamorous brownies yet. I used the hand moulded fondant roses, that I have only just learnt to make and wrote about in this post.

I use these little star shaped flowers a lot as filler flowers or little extra decorations. There is a little mini tutorial on how to make them here. The leaves are just made with a standard rose leaf plunger cutter.

What do you think? Glamorous enough for you? Gooey and chocolatey enough for you?

 That's all for today

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Black Lace Valentine Brownies

It seems a long time since I glammed up a brownie, so Valentine's Day would seem to be the ideal opportunity for some sophisticated glamorisation. These are dense fudge-y chocolate brownies covered with a pale sugar paste and then black lace make a lovely valentine surprise.  I always think of this as being a Paris colour scheme, the softest, pale peachy pink teamed with a matt sophisticated black lace. These brownies are based on an idea I used for these button bow cookies where I used the sugar veil lace mat as an embossing mat.

What you Need

To make these you need:

A batch of brownies baked with your favourite recipe. I used this recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Book

A heart shaped cutter

Peachy pink sugar paste. I coloured mine with Wilton's creamy peach, you can get a similar colour with sugarflair's "paprika"

Black sugar lace. Mine is made using the ready coloured black cake lace mix and the original sugar veil mat. Check out this post for more about making cake lace.

Bow Mould. The one I used is Bow Set 4 by First Impressions.

A litte CMC / Tylose powder for making the bows (optional)

Baking and Cutting the Brownies

I baked half of my brownie mix in a square pan and the other half of the mix I used to make some bling valentine brownies, which are also decorated in this pale peachy pink colour, but with a little gold razzle dazzle instead of sophisticated black. The heart shapes were cut out of the large square brownie using a heart shaped cutter, it is easier to do this if you turn the square brownie upside down and cut from the bottom to the top. As the middle of the baked brownie does not usually rise as mush as the sides, you get the best shaped brownie if you cut them with the point towards the middle and the rounded end in the corner.

This brownie recipe is so chocolaty, I can almost smell the chocolate through the screen. This recipe makes a lovely dense fudge brownie and this denseness makes them ideal for decorating. I decorated mine the day I baked them, they will cut better if they are not quite so fresh and even better if you have time to put them in the fridge over night.

Covering the Brownies

Once the brownies are cut out, its time to cover with the peachy pink sugar paste. When working with a pale coloured sugar paste and dark chocolate brownies, it is best to roll out just as much as you think you will need each time as those little chocolate crumbs get everywhere and they just love to stick to your pale peachy pink sugar paste whenever they get the chance.

I used an icing smoother to help adhere the sugar paste to the brownie, just as you would if covering a conventional cake, then used a pizza wheel to cut around the base and trim off the excess sugar paste.

Now for the lace. Brush a little water over the sugar paste. I use a water brush for this, you should be able to find one in your local craft store, look for one with the water colour paints and equipment. Make sure it is only a little water. Too much and some of the black sugar lace might dissolve and bleed into the sugar paste. So, not a good look. You can always add a little more if the lace is not sticking.

Position the lace carefully, so that the pattern on the lace enhances the shape of the brownie. Use your hands or an icing smoother to adhere the lace on to the sugar paste and then trim with a sharp knife or pizza wheel.

I love the way that the texture on the sugar veil mat makes lace that looks like it is made from looped thread.

If you look closely, you can probably make out a couple of areas where I have not quite scraped enough lace off whilst I was making it. Whilst you can see this in the picture below, it isn't really noticeable on the actual brownies which are approximately 7.5 cm or 3 inches high.

Making the Bows

When designing these brownies, I was going to use the same bow that I used on the button bow cookies, hover, having got to this stage, I didn't want to cover up so much of that delectable lace, so opted instead for a smaller bow using this first impressions mould.

Separate a little of your peachy pink sugar paste and mix with a little of the tylose or CMC powder to help with the moulding process. If you haven't got any, use the ordinary sugar paste and put the mould in the freezer for about 15 minutes before un-moulding.

This mould works best if you start with a small sausage of sugar paste and sort of wind it into the mould. Take off any excess and smooth carefully all around the edges to make sure you get a good finish.

Pop out the finished bows. How sweet are these?

Brush a little water onto the underside of the bow and gently push the bow onto the top of the brownie.

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Quest for a glamorous brownie or Brownies with bling

I love a brownie. Who doesn't? All that soft gooey chocolat-y-ness. The only thing is, they are not very glamorous are they? Try searching Google images with Brownie and you'll find an endless parade of uniform brown squares. Kind of the bridesmaid to the cupcake with all her showy swirls and sparkles and flowers and whatever else. Now, I know, what you are saying, it is whats on the inside that counts and that has been my mantra for many years. But, now. It's time. The quest for the glamorous brownie must begin and it begins here and now.

This is my first attempt at a Brownie with Bling that I showed you recently, the gold is the Squires Kitchen Gold Lustre.

I wasn't sure about the red, so I tried a different colour. Its a very different look isn't it?. I added a little Sugarflair edible lustre in dusky lilac to the roses for a bit of extra blinginess.

Anyone fancy one?

If you want to have a go, this is what you will need

Brownies baked in an appropriately sized sheet / square pan for your recipe

I've used the traditional brownies from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf, which is my most used cookbook. I may have mentioned it before?  I have searched high and low and managed to find the recipe here.

This is just the easiest ever recipe to make, didn't even get out my mixer.

Double Rose Springerle Mould from House on the Hill
Chocolate sugar paste / fondant you can of course use any kind of fondant, but, I have a feeling that brownies will only look right with chocolate
Another colour or colours of fondant if you want
Round cutter about the same size as the mould
Lustre dusts if you want

Use the round cutter to cut the brownies into circles about the same size as the design on the mould you are using. Any large leftovers can be cut into smaller shapes for eating as they are, decorating later or making brownie pops.

When I went to make these. I thought, these'll be easy, just do as for my old rose cookies, mould the sugar paste and add paint on the petal dust colours right? Uh, no. Turns out only metallic or pearlescent colours show up.

This is such a deep mould, whether you are using one or two colours, you need to make two little balls of fondant and press them into the rose part of the mould and then two tiny balls to push into the rose buds between the roses. I forgot to do the rose buds for my first mould as you can see from the pic below.

Now for the chocolate sugar paste

1. Roll the chocolate sugar paste out about 1cm thick
2. Press the mould on top - firmly and evenly to make the impression.
3. Lift the mould off by pressing upwards on the metal ring at the top of the mould and there should be a beautiful impression. Check you are happy with the quality of the moulding, if not, take off the coloured fondant, knead the chocolate fondant into a ball and roll and mould again. *
4. Use the same round cutter to cut out the design from the mould
5. Carefully lift the sugar paste and place on top of one of the brownies. (You shouldn't need to use any edible glue because the chocolate sugar paste is quite sticky).
6. If you want to gild the lily, add your lustre dust(s)

Enjoy!


* If a rose or bud remains in mould
Sometimes one of the roses or buds remain in the mould after it has been lifted off the sugar paste. Just gently tease them out with a toothpick or a small plastic cutting tool and gently place them in position and press down lightly.

Coloured Fondant has squelched out a bit
Use a slightly smaller ball of fondant.next time. For this time try using a toothpick to gently push back the coloured fondant towards the rose. Even is the mould is not perfect, these will still get eaten!

That's all for today

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