Still Feeling Peckish

So recently someone asked me for a brownie recipe and that made me pause…and scratch my head. I realised that I hadn’t made brownies in years! And it surprised me because brownies are actually one of the easiest things to make. In fact I think it was one of the first things I ever baked apart from chocolate chip cookies when I first started taking an interest in baking as a teenager. I think it must have been because I had tried out some low carb recipes in the past and they turned out less than stellar.

In this lockdown period I have been baking, but not a lot. I know that flour is actually almost impossible to find in Singapore now because obviously EVERYBODY has jumped on the baking bandwagon. I’ve been pretty entertained looking at everyone’s posts on Instagram and Facebook. But truth is that sweet treats, to me are meant to be treats and I don’t think we’re meant to be eating cake every day. So I’ve kind of kept to baking once a week even though I’ve had more chance to cook at home now since the start of the circuit breaker.

So truly making a brownie is a no-brainer. And there are plenty of great keto brownie recipes out there. But I wanted a moist, warm brownie with ice cream on top of it. Lots. So since it was Mother’s Day I figured we all deserved a treat and decided to do a full on brownie with the works. I think I’ve always had a mental ideal of a hot, moist, fudgy brownie topped by ice cream and chocolate/caramel sauce. I have a food memory seared in my mind – I think I was a young adult dating my then boyfriend now husband and we had been invited to Hard Rock Cafe when it first opened in Singapore. We were given free brownies and ice cream for dessert and the unctuousness of the medley of hot brownie and cold vanilla ice cream and whipped cream was mind blowing. It was one of those “first time” experiences that superseded other more sophisticated food experiences that I’ve had since then.

So thinking through the brownie recipe I also wanted to bake it in a skillet because – hey – what can be more impressive than a brownie whipped out of the oven in a skillet and topped by ice cream and salted caramel sauce? Of course it didn’t quite work out like that because our takeout dinner was delivered late (so the brownie wasn’t hot out of the oven), and I forgot to take out the ice cream from the freezer to thaw and we couldn’t make a beautiful scoop of ice cream to top the brownie. Actually we could have but we were too impatient.

Anyway the brownie was a hit. The family inhaled it and the plates were licked clean (literally). It may have been a bit of overkill but I had some Enlightened salted caramel ice cream, and I also made salted caramel sauce with Carolyn Ketchum’s recipe in her book Easy Keto Desserts. Hubs was literally drinking the salted caramel sauce on his own also. Ok maybe the family is a bit deprived but good things do come to those who wait!