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Brownies HELP!!!

post #1 of 16
9/29/05 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone this is my first post here. So far I love the site :)

Anyway... I am having a heck of a problem with making the brownies. For some reason when I am making sheet cakes they come out just fine. The problem arises whenever I make brownies. I am using a Garland Master 450 Convection oven with 6 racks in 12 slots. There are two speeds for the fan high/low and the fan is in the back of the oven. It forces the air around the sides of the oven for circulation.
The problem I am having is that the ends of the brownies, and to a lesser extent the sides, are rock hard by the time the middle is done. My food cost is insane and got chewed out about it by the Sous Chef last night, and deservedly so.
I have been running the ovens at the recommended temp of 325 and have done tests and the heat is even across the face of the sheet pan in the center rack. My ovens run about 5 deg low. Also have been running with the fan on high. I have been trying to make sure I get the brownies nice and even and for the most part have been able to do that.
The only possible thing I can come up with that might be the cause is the fan running too fast/high or over filling the oven. Other than that I am at a loss. The mixes (Ghiradelli) are fairly straight forward. I am following directions and adding 1/3 cup water and oil and 1 egg (liquid eggs) per bag.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
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post #2 of 16
9/29/05 at 1:26pm
The obvious observation is that the outside is overbaked. Is this a cake-like brownie or a fudgey one? Typically we bake brownies at 300F in a reel oven (no fans or air circ. except the shelves turning.) We don't really bake until the center is "done." If anything we underbake and the brownie falls. I would suspect that your brownie bake time is much longer than your sheets. Perhaps try a lower temp, less fan and less time. Maybe others are more famiilar with this type of oven.
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post #3 of 16
9/29/05 at 1:58pm
GoalieBaker – I'm rather crunched for time today, so I must hurriedly brainstorm some ideas:

Are you adding enough eggs to the Ghiradelli mix? I recall that 2 pouches require 4 large eggs. (However, I've never used the product!)

Are you using a rotary mixer to blend the batter? If so, be careful re overmixing! Do you rap the baking pans on a work surface prior to sliding them into the oven? That ought to settle the batter suffiently to rid it of air pockets.

Is the recommended temp. of 325°F indicated for a conventional or convection oven? Brownies need, of course, to be withdrawn from the oven just before they’re fully baked. Does your kitchen's operating budget preclude your building the brownies from fresh ingredients?

Is the circulating fan driven by a belt?

Perhaps the temperature-protection sensor is going on the fizz. Replacement thermistors have a fairly low cost. Before too long, you may have to call in a field technician to adjust the air-circulating fan.

FYI: Troubleshooting pages at the Food Developers eSource (alas, subscription r’qd) –
http://www.foodesource.com/ContApp/bakery.asp
"A house is beautiful, not because of its walls, but because of its cakes." ~ Old Russian proverb
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post #4 of 16
9/29/05 at 3:03pm
Goalie,
cut the fan. If you only have a high/low then, low. If you can bake without fan, then do that. We don't use mixes but bake many brownies. We use a deck instead of convect. If you have conventional ovens under your lines burner decks that are available and can support what you need to bake, then use those.
If you don't have any options, use a higher burn oil, throw collars on to divert the air( even building higher with foil). It seems that lowering the temp will keep this from happening, but with convection ,it's actually the opposite with this type of batter. I'm assuming it's like our scratch ( no levener). The more fan the more constant heat. The conventional will dip and recover.
These are just my thoughts without thinking too much
I'm also assuming that you haven't baked these before with good results.
Good luck,
And let us know
Pan

Never! Live To Work!:::::::Work To Live!::Life Is To Short!!
Paninicakes.com

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post #5 of 16
4/13/07 at 12:54am
maybe it's the recipe. try this one if you want to:

3/4 cup butter or margerine
2 tbps. shortening
3/4 cup bensdorp cocoa
2 cups sugar (1 cup white, 1 cup brown)
2 tbsp. chopped semi sweet chocolate
3 xlarge eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. chopped white chocolate
1 cup flour

procedure:

1. preheat oven 350 degrees C

2. grease a 9"X"13 tin baking pan

3. in a medium saucepan melt the butter together with the shortening and cocoa.

4. remove from heat and add the semisweet chocolate.

5. add the two sugars.

6. add the eggs one at a time

7. add vanilla

8. add flour together with the white chocolate. mix carefully (be careful not to overmix or the batter will have bubbles in it.)

this is my own recipe by the way. i'm not sure if it works for you.
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post #6 of 16
4/13/07 at 9:24am
please excuse my ignorence but what ingredient is shortening, i as ways thought that shortening was butter.
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post #7 of 16
4/13/07 at 9:28am

confused

one mor question, i got an american cookbook for a pressie and im wondering if anyone knows the differenc between a cup to Gram and ounces
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post #8 of 16
4/13/07 at 10:51am
one cup equals 8 oz, you cant measure a cup in grams due to the different densities of the ingredient you put into the measuring cup, but roughly, 1 lb of flour comes out to about 3 &3/4 cups. and of course a pint of water equals one pound. hope this helps a bit
RAR!!!
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post #9 of 16
4/13/07 at 1:28pm
This is a little free on line conversion calculator; type in your ingredient and it will convert the volume to weight in both grams and ounces.

Volume and Weight Conversions for Common Baking Ingredients

Volume and Weight Conversions for Common Baking Ingredients
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" - George Orwell.

"What we do, more than anything we say, reveals what we truly value the most." - An Unknown Soldier
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post #10 of 16
4/13/07 at 11:39pm
I'm only a home cook, but i have cooked in friends' houses and have concluded that i would never buy a convection oven. I don;t like the effect the fan has on food. The roast potatoes i had were dried out, the cake was dried out. Now, maybe i don;t know how to use it, but i've seen the owners of the stoves have the same problems (except that they didn;t seem to mind!)
Roast potatoes, i think, should be crispy and browned outside, cooked through, but still moist inside. Impossible as far as i can see,with the fan oven. If you leave them long enough to brown, they've been cooked through for a long time, and they just dry out. Cakes are similar, they dry out.
I don;t even like forced hot air to heat my house, give me a nice radiator any day, the hot air gives me dry throat!
"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #11 of 16
4/14/07 at 11:45am
I have been using a convection oven in my home kitchen for 20+ years, first with a Caloric and now with a GE. In my experience, when you use the convention oven, you need to lower your temp at leasdt 25 degrees then the recommended recipe temp and for about 1/3 less cooking time. Don't have any experience with the stove you're using though.
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post #12 of 16
4/15/07 at 8:44pm
hello! we (at work) use the same mix and have the same kind of oven - it sounds like. i would reccemmend baking at 300* with a low fan. and dont forget to rotate them halfway between baking. we take them outta the oven when you shake the sheet and they no longer jiggle. that means they are just done. and then we cool them at room temp- then in the fridge. they are easier to cut whent they are cold.

i found that the ghirardelli brand has less of a crusty edge than some other brands.
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post #13 of 16
4/15/07 at 9:56pm

Munchers

Technically butter is a type of shortening. All fats are "shortenings" because they shorten gluten strands.

However in the US, we refer to vegetable oil based solid fats as shortening. These are products that are made from vegetable oil but are treated (partially hydrogenated) to cause them to be solid at room temp. An example is the brand Crisco. They have a higher melt point so they perform better in some ways than butter....but they add no flavor. They also are used in applications where we formerly would have used lard.

In the US you rarely hear butter referred to as "shortening". Usually we just say "butter".

Hope this helps

eeyore
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post #14 of 16
4/17/07 at 1:30pm
I did think that a butter was a shortening but in Ireland we dont call it that we just call it butter. im a bit confused about why you have to add both butter ans the shortening into the BROWNIE mix.Would that not make the dish/cake greasy????????
I used to make them everyday for 5 years and only ever aded the one kind of fat into the BROWNIES. just curious.
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post #15 of 16
4/17/07 at 5:45pm
here in the states, butter and shortening are NOT one and the same. shorteneing, here, is a basically a solid form of canola oil. a synthetic (at least i think so...) fat that has little to no taste at all (unless using flavored shortening) shortening has very different characteristics from say butter or lard. it has a higher melting point than butter, so things like cookies, and i think brownies will have some time to leven in the oven before melting completely. a common brand of shortening is crisco. someone please tell me if this information helps a bit... and is accurate...
RAR!!!
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post #16 of 16
4/19/07 at 6:14pm
In the US we also call butter "butter". We never refer to butter as shortening even though technically it is. In the US shortening equals Crisco.

Personally I dont put shortening in brownies. I dont see any reason to. It will probably extend shelf life a little. But I personally would disregard any recipe that calls for shortening.

That's not to say Im like some chefs and am anti-shortening. I use it for many things. But not for brownies.

IMHO
eeyore
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