Espresso Brownies with Caramelised White Chocolate Ganache

Has anyone else been devouring the new season of Chef’s Table: pastry edition? I’m not sure I’ve ever delighted over a documentary quite as much as the first episode detailing the rise of Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar. Partially due to her story and personality, and partially due to the personal memories and nostalgia evoked. I must admit that although other episodes have been interesting, the theatre and artistry of fine dining restaurants tend to come across as rather remote.

Of course, she was always going to be much more relatable because I’ve actually cooked and eaten her food. The unique unfrosted layer cake is signature Tosi – why on earth go to the effort of frosting a cake to perfection, when you could spend that time much more effectively by creating extra-delicious components to stack up inside? The german chocolate cake I posted a slight riff on a few years ago is a prime example. Not limited to chocolate cake and frosting, it builds up a caramel ‘crack’ coconut filling, pecan crunch, a chocolate cake soak for extra moisture and espresso chocolate frosting. Layered up with an acetate sheet lined tin for extra height and frozen overnight, it’s fiddly and time-consuming but unquestionably worth it. (That worth combines the wonderful riot of textures, flavours and visual appeal, the satisfaction of pulling it off, and the reactions you get from those you serve it to, in case you were wondering).

I think I overloaded on sugar partially due to Milk Bar during the week I had in NYC. Cereal milk soft serve eaten on a sun-drenched day in the West Village – a creation using the flavoured milk produced by soaking cornflakes in it; slices of crack pie on a park bench in Williamsburg – borderline sickly with sugar but with addictive buttery, nutty qualities you can’t quite put your finger on (milk powder and freeze dried corn are key); tucking a few compost cookies into my suitcase for the rest of my family to devour 30 hours later back home (compost meaning everything from coffee grinds to pretzels, potato chips and graham cracker crust). Souvenirs were a bottle of freeze dried corn powder (quite a different thing to cornflour, by the way) and a few bags of very American caramel chips – I have no idea what customs thought. 

Her style is incredibly innovative, slightly eccentric, very American and totally joyful – as she puts it, a sweet treat has a way of giving you “a moment where the weight of the world is just a little bit lighter on your shoulders”. Crack pie, the unfrosted layer cake, cereal milk soft serve and compost cookies have become instantly recognisable, even iconic, desserts. They’re precise, impeccably researched, trialed, tested and detailed, and draw on Tosi’s background as a pastry chef – but they also stem from her familiarity with all-American home baking, and for that reason they remain accessible. They’re not quite out of our reach. Maybe I’m not sure how I feel about the prepackaged cookies churned out, and the rapid expansions of Milk bar as a chain (I’m more on the ‘keep it exclusive rather than risk quality decline’ side of the fence), but it doesn’t take away from my admiration of the business and the woman behind it all. 

Speaking of home cooking, a couple of articles on this caught my attention. One posted on The Kitchn blog, the other by Nigella Lawson (who I have previously written about on a similar note back here). The former was aggrieved by the way in which Tosi was portrayed as someone with roots in home baking, and thought this was reinforcing the stereotype of women in the kitchen at home and men receiving awards as restaurant chefs. Though maybe Netflix could have put more emphasis on her pastry chef years and awards for Milk Bar (and on a separate note, could do with more diversity), my initial reaction was that this was a bit harsh – surely home cooking is no longer just the domain of 50s housewives? Nigella’s article “Home Cooking is a Feminist Act” lends another perspective – though she is more talking about how she prefers the title of home cook to chef, whereas clearly Tosi has faultless pastry chef credentials, some of her points still stand. As she puts it, “yet I have always felt that to disparage an activity because it has been traditionally female is itself anti-feminist.” The creativity and independence enabled by home cooking is not inferior to the theatrical land of professional kitchens. 

Anyway, a la Tosi, I attempt to push my limits at least a little with baking. I want my recipes to be approachable and managable, but at least the majority of the time seek out flavours and combinations that aren’t already detailed in every other recipe book. These espresso brownies with caramelised white chocolate ganache are a prime example. I’m not the biggest fan of white chocolate (to be honest, I actively avoid it). But the silky golden hues of the caramelised version had been taunting me for a while – trying it myself was inevitable. Clearly, as this post attests, it was worth it. Roasting the chocolate adds a rich, caramelised note to something that is ordinarily sickly, and it whips up to a gloriously fluffy and addictive frosting. The brownie itself is so dark and espresso filled it almost has a bitter edge, that meshes perfectly with a sweet frosting. They have an intensity that makes a small piece all you need, and could just as easily be served as a dinner party dessert as for an afternoon tea party. Yes, caramelised white chocolate is a bit of a labour of love, but sometimes it’s worth it (just make sure you read the trouble-shooting section first). 

Trouble shooting and tips & tricks: 

• Allow yourself enough time! Almost all caramelised white chocolate problems are fixable with a bit of time. 
• Try to use a white chocolate brand with >30% cocoa solids if you can get it, as it will be easier to make a ganache with. Most supermarket brands are <30% and tend to seize and crumble as you caramelise them – however, mine did this and it still worked very well. Just don’t freak out when it crumbles as you cook it – it will remelt when you add the hot cream. Have a look at the photographs below for the colour I took my chocolate too. 
• To turn your white chocolate ganache into a whipped frosting, it has to cool to room temperature or slightly cooler. If it is still warm, it won’t lighten and thicken. If you have this problem, just put the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes or so and try again. 
• If you feel like your ganache is splitting (getting oily, or separating), place it in the fridge for 10 minutes and then beat again until it emulsifies. 
• Other guides with more pictures: see Food52 and David Lebovitz.
• Below are some pictures of the caramelised white chocolate process for me: