Pimp my Brownie

Last year at university I had to do a lot of practical exams (3 in total) now this doesn’t sound like a lot to do over a year but believe me it was! I’m the kind of person who likes to practice things over and over again and work on exam technique. This meant that I practiced each exam 4 or 5 times each. For 2 of my exams I had to come up with a threee course menu and then make it in 4 hours! The other exam was a pastry one and it meant that I had to make 3 types of bread, a dessert and 2 types of petit feurs in 4 hours. So a lot of work had to be put into research and recipe testing! Anyway for one of my practical 3 course menu exams I decided to do a Swedish theme. For the started I did a Swedish bruschetta, for the main I made Swedish meatballs and for the dessert I made kladkaka which is a type of Swedish brownie. I scored higher in the brownie than the other two courses which is good because I am more interested in pastry! This exam was for a module called contemporary gastronomy. Contemporary gastronomy is just a fancy title for fancy cooking. Therefore I had to make sure that my brownie was vamped up. I did this by using different types of garnishes like caramelised white chocolate and peanut butter popcorn. I also made a raspberry coulis and served my brownie with a quinnel of creme fraiche. I also decided to serve the brownie with some fresh blueberries, a sprig of mint and some edible flours. The fruit and creme fraiche cut through the dense brownie and made it a lighter dessert. Now you’re probably wondering what caramelised white chocolate is! It is easier to make than it sounds it involves melting chocolate in a frying pan with some icing sugar until it starts to caramelised and break up into little nuggets. Caramelised white chocolate is used a lot in molecular gastronomy. I made the peanut butter popcorn by simply making popcorn then stirring it into melted peanut butter.