Amaranth brownies and a hideous movie

I was stuck in the mall days ago and there was nothing left for me to do but to watch a movie in the theater, but the problem is that there wasn’t much to choose from so I ended up watching Furious 7 – it was the first movie of the franchise I ever saw and my goodness, how can something be so awful, I’m still trying to understand.

I know I’m not the target audience, but I could not believe that something so poorly written – James Cameron’s school of embarrassing dialogues and bad jokes – and with such bad acting is this big of a hit and makes so much money at the box office, and don’t even get me started at the impossible stunts and naked ladies.

To each their own, I guess – there will probably be more of those hideous movies in the future, but I prefer my share of repetition in brownie form: there are about thirty brownie recipes on this blog and I bring you another one today, this time with amaranth flour: the ingredient leaves a bit of a gritty texture in the brownies and I don’t think that is a big deal, but if you don’t want that or don’t have any amaranth flour around use 150g all purpose flour instead and get yourself a really good traditional brownie.

Amaranth brownies
slightly adapted from trEATs: Delicious Food Gifts to Make at Home

150g unsalted butter, cubed
150g dark chocolate, finely chopped – I used one with 53% cocoa solids
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
½ cup (88g) brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup (105g) all purpose flour
1/3 cup (45g) amaranth flour
¼ teaspoon table salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Lightly butter a 20cm (8in) square baking pan, line it with foil leaving an overhang in two opposite sides and butter the foil as well.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a medium bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, ensuring that the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. Cool slightly.

Meanwhile, using the whisk attachment of an electric mixer, whisk the sugars, eggs and vanilla extract until the mixture is light and foamy. Whisk in the melted chocolate mixture. Fold in the all purpose flour, amaranth flour and salt.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake for about 30 minutes: the sides and top should be set and the centre still moist.
Cool completely in the pan over a wire rack. Cut into squares to serve. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Makes 16

Fig, ginger and almond bars

I usually plan ahead the recipes I want to cook on the weekend so I have time to do the shopping beforehand – I get disappointed when I choose a recipe from a book only to discover, minutes later, that I don’t have all the ingredients at hand.

I made the honey raspberry cake I mentioned the other day because the only fruit I had at home were frozen berries – empty refrigerator is a classic side effect of vacation time. I baked the cake, then decided to watch some TV, flip through my cookbooks and forget about the shortage of fresh food for a while – I wasn’t really in the mood for grocery shopping, and my husband was too tired, poor thing, I really couldn't ask him to go out just because I wanted to bake.

Two or three flipped cookbooks later, I saw a recipe for marmalade and ginger bars topped with almonds, and they looked delicious. As I read the list of ingredients, I realized I had everything in my pantry and fridge – how rare is that? – except the marmalade – ooops –, but I did have some fig preserves left from making the buckwheat thumbprints.

I felt that the fig + ginger combo would be as good as orange + ginger one, so I replaced the marmalade with the fig preserves and added a bit of amaranth flour for nutritional purposes. Fig and ginger are, indeed, delish together, and the bars were a hit: they tasted great and the baking urge was gone in no time.

Fig, ginger and almond bars
slightly adapted from the beautiful and delicious The Baking Collection (The Australian Women's Weekly)

Base:
90g unsalted butter, softened
½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
100g all purpose flour
50g amaranth flour
generous ¼ teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Filling:
1 cup fig preserves
¼ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Topping:
1 egg, beaten lightly with a fork
120g flaked almonds
60g ground almonds
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Lightly butter a 20x30cm (8x12in) rectangular pan, line it with foil leaving an overhang in two opposite sides and butter the foil as well.
Base: using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in vanilla. Add the egg and beat to combine. Stir in flours, baking powder and salt*. Spread dough into pan.
Filling: combine fig preserves and ginger in small bowl; spread over base.
Topping: combine egg, vanilla, 80g of the flaked almonds and ground almonds in a medium bowl. Spread almond mix over marmalade; sprinkle with remaining almonds.
Bake for about 40 minutes. Cool slice in pan. Cut into slices or squares.

* at this stage, my dough was too soft (maybe from replacing part of the all purpose flour for amaranth flour), so I added 2 tablespoons (20g) all purpose flour to it

Makes 24

Amaranth cantuccini - no butter, no olive oil

So far I’ve made several delicious recipes replacing butter with olive oil, but how about baking cookies without neither? That is what made me curious about these cantuccini: the fat in them comes from the almonds and the eggs – no butter, no olive or canola oil – and the eggs, combined with the fruit juices, are also responsible for the moisture in the dough.

Just for the record: I have nothing against fat, much to the opposite – I feel lost without butter in my fridge and I use olive oil for cooking all the time – but I find it interesting to learn how to make delicious things without it.

This is a fairly simple recipe – no electric devices involved – and the cantuccini turned out very flavorsome from all the fruit zest and juice. These are not rock-hard and they benefit from some time in the cookie jar: the citrus flavor becomes more evident with time, making the cantuccini even tastier days after they were baked (if they last that long). ;)

Amaranth cantuccini
slightly adapted from the delicious Do-Ahead Dinners: How to Feed Friends and Family Without the Frenzy

200g all-purpose flour
50g amaranth flour
150g granulated sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
zest of 1 orange and juice of ½
zest and juice of ½ lemon
2 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
150g almonds (skin on)

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Line a large baking sheet with foil.
Mix the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Throw in the orange and lemon juice and zest, eggs and vanilla, and mix together thoroughly. Stir in the almonds – the dough will be sticky.

With lightly floured hands, divide the dough into two pieces and roll each into slightly flattened sausage shapes, about 30cm (12in) long each. Transfer to the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes, then carefully peel off the foil.
Using a sharp knife and one firm cut, slice each log diagonally into 1cm slices, place them onto the sheet, side by side, and bake for 10 minutes or until golden. Turn the biscotti and bake until golden on the other side as well, about 8 minutes.

Cool completely, then store in airtight containers.

Makes about 35

Amaranth choc chip cookies, and one month without movies

I had a confession to make: I haven’t watched a movie in weeks. Several weeks – it might be a record or something.

The last movie I watched was The Fault in Our Stars, then the World Cup began and I breathed soccer for a month – I believe I wasn’t the only one. :) After the German team took home the Cup I got obsessed with season 6 of SoA, so there was no room for movies – I had to know how things would end up (for the record, I did not like it at all).

My plans for the weekend: to watch as least one movie. And to bake, of course. :)

Movies weren’t the only forgotten thing around here: I hadn’t baked chocolate chip cookies in quite some time I did not even remember when I’d done that last. Being in possession of a 70% chocolate bar made me think of choc chips cookies, they would be the perfect way to use up such great chocolate. I’d seen these and they looked so good, and then I saw that they were an adaptation of a recipe I’d made, too, from a cookbook I adore (and the cookies were delicious).

I was out of buckwheat flour so I changed the recipe ever so slightly and used amaranth flour instead – the cookies turned out fantastic, beautifully golden, with a slightly different flavor. I had a couple while they were still warm from the oven and it was hard not to eat several in a row, I must tell you. There was a very, very subtle grainy texture to them while still warm – to me, not a problem at all – and that became less evident once they were completely cool.

If you’re out of amaranth flour, don’t fret: try the whole wheat version, it is equally delish.

Amaranth choc chip cookies
adapted from this wonderful cookbook, one of my favorites

2/3 cup (93g) whole wheat flour
2/3 cup (93g) all purpose flour
¼ cup (35g) amaranth flour
¾ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick/113g) cold unsalted butter, chopped
½ cup (88g) light brown sugar, packed
½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate (70%), coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
In a large bowl, whisk the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on low speed just until the ingredients are blended, 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing on medium until each is combined. Mix in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients at once and blend on low just until the flour is barely combined, about 30 seconds. Add the chocolate chunks at once and mix on low speed just until the chocolate is evenly combined – to avoid overmixing the dough, finish incorporating the ingredients with your a spatula.
Place 2 leveled tablespoons of dough per cookie onto the prepared sheets, 5cm (2in) apart. Bake until golden brown around the edges, 12-16 minutes.
Cool in the pan for 2 minutes, then slide the paper with the cookies onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Makes about 20

Little passion fruit and coconut cakes (with amaranth flour) and time to change

A very dear friend of mine adores Downton Abbey and every time we see each other she asks me if I have started watching the show, to which I always reply “no, not yet”. She ended up lending me the DVDs, but I’ve been so caught up with SoA that I never bring myself to watch them.

To make things worse, I’ve started watching The Sopranos (because of another dear friend) and got hooked right from the start – it is impossible not to love Tony Soprano, I can tell you.

Breaking Bad, The Fall, SoA and now The Sopranos – I wonder if I’m on a criminal roll. :S Maybe it’s time to change to something less bloody, more delicate. Maybe it’s time for Downton Abbey, after all. :)

If my TV series choices seem to fall into a certain category, my cooking and baking habits seem to have widen, a little at least: these small cakes fit perfectly into my desire to try new things and to make old favorites differently – made with icing sugar, egg whites and almond meal they’re like financiers, but here the all purpose flour is replaced by amaranth flour, making these a tiny bit more nutritional then traditional financiers and also gluten free (I have gone as far as calling sweets “nutritional”, you’re not reading it wrong). :D

Little passion fruit and coconut cakes (with amaranth flour)
slightly adapted from the beautiful Supergrains: Cook Your Way to Great Health

200g pure icing sugar
65g amaranth flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup (100g) almond meal
½ cup (50g) desiccated coconut
6 egg whites, lightly whisked
100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
70g passion fruit pulp, seeds and all
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
icing sugar, extra, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 12-hole 80ml muffin pan or line it with paper cases.
Sift the icing sugar, amaranth flour, baking powder and salt together into a large mixing bowl. Stir through the almond meal and coconut.
Add the egg whites, butter, zest, passion fruit pulp and vanilla and stir to combine. Divide the mixture among the lined muffin holes. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through (a skewer inserted into the center of a cake should come out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it). Remove from the oven and set aside for 5 minutes, then carefully unmold and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Makes 12