Party dessert -- Brownie

This Sunday, our colleague invited group members to enjoy his homemade Pakistan food. I brought a brownie, which can be a proper mate for spicy dishes.

It is my first time to try brownie. I wrote down "Don't over work, don't over bake" beside my recipe :)

I chose dark chocolate bar and dark chocolate chips in my brownie.

Preparation:

(1) Grease a 8×8 inch square baking pan and line with parchment paper;

(2) In a medium bowl, sift together 3/4 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp cocoa and 1/4 tsp salt;

(3) Weigh 141 g dark chocolate bar, finely chop (Alton Brown once taught how to chop chocolate bar in his "Good eat", it works perfectly);

(4) 3 eggs;

(5) In a bowl, prepare 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup light brown sugar.

Directions:

(1) Melt 1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine in the upper pot of double boiler, blend in chopped chocolate and stir with rubber spatula until smooth;

(2) Remove upper pot from heat, add sugar mixture immediately, so that sugar can melt and bring a smooth mixture;

(3) Add one egg each time, blend with rubber spatula until incorporated and mixture is not grainy;

(4) Sift flour mixture over batter, gently but quickly fold batter (as I make chiffon cake), stop mixing when a small amount of dry flour still can be observed;

(5) Add chocolate chips, blend just to mix;

(6) Preheat oven to 350 F;

(7) Pour batter into baking pan, flat top;

(8) Bake for 15 minutes, then start to check every five minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs;

(9) Let cool on a wire rake with baking pan, then chill in the fridge until almost firm and cut into small squares with dampened serrated knife.

* I tried a piece of warm brownie (as shown in the pic) and dust the brownie with cocoa, very tasty. The flavor of dark chocolate is so amazing!

Tapioca pearl dessert

Two reasons make me not able to give this dessert up: the special taste of translucent pearl and the sweet silky coconut cream.

To prepare this yummy dessert, two main ingredients are necessary: large tapioca pearl and coconut cream.

　

Besides these two ingredients, you need sugar, dried fruits (such as cranberry, raisin), tropical fruits (such as mango, pineapple) and some other fruits (such as my favourite ruby grapefruit). Though fruits are optional, they bring color and special taste, they can even change the dessert appearance, either gel or cream.

Here are my steps:

(1) Bring water to boil, stir in 1 cup pearl; bring water to boil again, cover and heat under low power for 20 minutes.

(2) Strain water through a sieve, wash pearl with tap water until it is not sticky. Strain water fully.

(3) In a pot, add 5 cup water, 8 tbsp sugar and bring to boil. Stir in cooked pearl. Bring to boil, cover and heat under very low power (only allow very tiny bubble: under this condition, pearl will absorb water very evenly and slowly, meanwhile, it won't stick on the bottom of the pot). Stir occasionally during cooking until all pearls are translucent. Sometimes, you will find one or two pearls never change the color, always in white; don't hesitate and just pick it out, throw away -- it is not necessary to waste your time on these bad pearls.

(4) In a large container, add 1 cup coconut cream, one chopped mango, one chopped pineapple, some dried cranberry or golden raisin, pulp of one grapefruit, stir in translucent pearls, blend well and chill at least 2 hours before serving.

For the addition of mango and pineapple, there is something you need to know:

Some enzyme in mango and pineapple will destroy the agar-agar chain, therefore, if you would like to have a gelatinous dessert, don't forget to cook chopped mango and pineapple before adding them into the dessert mixture; otherwise, the dessert is like cream as shown here: