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LAist recently kicked off a new event series called Cookbook Live in partnership with the James Beard Foundation.
The series, hosted by LAist food and culture writer Gab Chabrán, asks leading L.A. chefs to talk about their newly released cookbooks and the personal stories behind their creation.
(Watch out for Kiano Moju, author of AfriCali: Recipes From My Jikoni on Thursday, Sept. 18, and Roy Choi, author of The Choi of Cooking on Thursday, Nov. 13).
The first event — on June 26 at LAist’s Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena — featured renowned baker Nicole Rucker, author of Fat + Flour: The Art of a Simple Bake: A Cookbook.
Chabrán interviews Rucker at the Cookbook Live event.
In a night of banter, laughs and salivation-inducing brownies, Rucker shared her baking philosophy and a range of cooking tips.
Most important, she revealed step-by-step how she makes her famous Dark Chocolate brownies, handing samples out to the audience. For the full experience, you’ll have to watch here, but in the meantime, here’s Nicole’s guide to achieving baking nirvana.
Nicole Rucker is the owner of the Fat and Flour Pie Shop in Grand Central Market and Culver City.
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Alan Gastelum
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Courtesy Fat and Flour
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1. Use many shapes and sizes of chocolate
Some of you may use cocoa powder in your brownies. Others may prefer pure chocolate. Rucker uses both and more, combining cocoa powder, 72% chocolate, 100% chocolate, and at the end, chocolate chips.
“All of these things are important for making the ultimate chocolate flavor and also the chocolatiest texture,” she said.
A batch of Nicole’s brownies, baked by an LAist staffer after the event
2. Whisk a lot but not too much
The secret to the flaky, shiny, perfect top of a brownie? Whisking well. “ You have to really whisk the eggs in the recipe with the sugar to start to break it down. That’s actually what makes that shiny papery layer on the surface,” Rucker said.
But she also warned not to whisk too much. That would create too much air in the mixture, which would dry out the brownie.
Chabrán mixes chocolate chips into the brownie batter.
3. Use bread flour for chewiness
Higher protein flour, such as bread flour, can capture that magical “fudgy plus chewy” texture, according to Rucker. Using bread flour gives you “chew insurance”, as she puts it.
“ The secret in a bakery is that we never make our brownies the same day that we eat them. They’re made maybe seven days before,” Rucker shared. This time enables the brownies to sit and “cure,” which creates that perfect texture.
Rucker coaches Chabrán on the art of mixing, as he holds an electric whisk over a bowl.
4. Get air pockets out before placing the brownie batter in the oven
Rucker says you should smack your pan on the counter before cooking to remove any air.
She said many bakers use a quarter sheet tray, although that’s not strictly necessary. But you should adjust accordingly.
“Everything bakes differently,” she explained. “ If you have a darker colored pan, you’re gonna bake it a little bit less.”
Rucker, right, told the audience that her cookbook aims to simplify baking.
5. Cook the brownies at a high temperature
Rucker bakes her brownies at 375 degrees in a conventional oven, or 355 in a convection oven. It’s an unorthodox choice, higher than is traditional, which she says draws outraged emails.
For the brownies she’d pre-made for the event, she told the audience she’d used a convection oven and baked the brownies at 355° for 10 minutes, before rotating the pan, and baking for another 15 minutes.
“It gets the right consistency outside and inside,” she said. Cooking at a higher temperature also keeps the brownies from getting dry and chalky, she says.
Rucker then lets the brownies cool to room temperature and puts them in the fridge for a half an hour, which means you can cut them into much cleaner squares.