Day: 15 January 2023

I had aquafaba left over from making humus and always wanted to do something simple with it. As well, it has been a long time since I do brownies. So found a recipe that mixed both:

Ingredients:

• Liquid from a can of chickpeas (around 120ml)
• 290g sugar (I think it is too much)
• 150g dark chocolate (I used 85% dark) chopped
• 110g margarine
• 180g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp coffee powder
• optional: chocolate chips (I didnt use…)
• 2 handful of frozen cherries

Process:

• Pre-heat oven at 175C
• Let the frozen cherries to get to room temperature. Dont add them frozen to the butter (as I did…) as it will solidify it….
• Sift flour and cocoa powder.
• In another bowl, mix sugar and aquafaba. I dont have a mixing attachment to my hand blender so I did it manually. I didnt get to the point as in the video.
• Add the vanilla, salt, coffe to the liquid. Fold it with a spatula.
• Melt the margarine and chocolate using Bain Marie. I ran out of bowl and had to use a saucepan directly on the heat….
• Pour the melted chocolate over the aquafaba mix. Fold everything together.
• Add the flour mix to the wet ingredients. Combine properly but dont over mix.
• Add the chocolate chips and cherries if you want to. Mix all a bit.
• Pour the butter into a baking tin covered with baking paper. Mine is 30x20cm and I think it is a bit too big. You dont have to spread the butter everywhere if you want a bit thicker brownies.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes. Use a toothpick to check if the center comes out with a bit of moister. Dont over bake it! (as I did)
• Let the brownies to cool for 0 minutes then you can cut them.

To be honest, I made many mistakes. The worse one was adding the cherries frozen!!! And I left the brownies too long in the oven. As usual, more practice!!!

I think my normal brownies are much better but still it was a way to use aquafaba. Need to find more usage for that anyway.

This dough can be used for pizza too. And the filling is quite personal.

Ingredients for dough (x2 calzone)

• 225g plain or strong white flour + dusting
• 90ml milk warmed at body temperature
• 50ml water warmed at body temperature
• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 25ml olive oil
• pinch salt

Filling:

• cherry tomatoes
• 1 mozzarella roughly chopped
• any cold meat if you wish
• capers, oregano
• grated parmesan
• olive oil
• some slices of onion
• some tbsp of tomate sauce

Process

• Sift the flour and salt in a bowl.
• Warm the milk and water in a saucepan. Just body temperature! If too hot, will kill the yeast. Add the dry yest and mix.
• Add the milk mix to the flour, mix a bit and then add oil. Mix well.
• Knead until smooth and the window test passes.
• Let me it proof until double in size.
• Pre-heat oven at 250C.
• Mix all your filling ingredients in a bowl.
• Dive the dough in two, roll in a big circle around 23cm or so.
• Put the filling in the middle. Dont put too much so you need to “close” the dough.
• Brush the dough edges with water, then fold half the side over to cover the filling.
• Pinch the edges “covering your thumb”.
• White a knife score the top of your calzone.
• Bake until dough is golden.

It looks like a big “empanada” but still was good.

To be honest, I need to practice more my pizza dough. It is quite far from any good pizza I have tried.