Easier than a brioche or making a tour double and all of that mumbo-jumbo, I now introduce: a brownie. It’s not black because it’s burnt. I promise!
Initially, I wanted to do a black sesame tang yuan — a sweet and chewy ball of rice flour that has black sesame in the middle — but that seemed a bit too difficult for me to make because I was particularly pressed on time. I’ll attempt it eventually because I love it so much.
Instead, I settled for black sesame brownies. “Settled” is a bad word… I pounced on the idea and ran with it because it seemed like such an easy thing to bake, and also because brownies have never failed me before.
Black sesame brownies (recipe from Pig Pig’s Corner)
Ingredients:
- 150 grams of unsalted butter – melted
- 100 g black sesame seeds
- 140 g caster sugar
- 1/2 teaspoons of light soy sauce
- Two eggs
- 100 g plain flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon of black sesame seeds (to sprinkle on top)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 320 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Combine melted butter and sesame seeds in a food processor or blender and blend until a paste is formed.
- Add sesame paste to a pan, add sugar and soy sauce, fry for a few mins until fragrant (oil will start to separate). Remove from heat and leave this to cool.
- When sesame mixture is cool to touch (warm is fine), mix in eggs one-by-one.
- Gently fold in plain flour until just combined.
- Pour batter into a lightly greased and lined square tin.
- Sprinkle black sesame seeds on top. (Don’t omit this step, as the sesame seeds add a nice crunch to the cake!)
- Bake for about 25 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.
The recipe didn’t prove me wrong. It was a breeze to make. I know the recipe says they’re brownies, but it feels like a normal cake to me. Maybe they’re only called brownies because you can cut them up into little squares.
To me, the “fudginess” of a normal chocolate brownie was lost here. I’m not sure how that can be fixed; overall, the texture reminded me of a cake rather than the typical dense kind of brownie.
If I had to go about this a second time, I’d definitely try to cut down on the butter and the sugar. When the sesame seed paste is being stirred in the pan, you could really see the sesame seeds release their oils, and that along with the butter was a little too much for me. I even decided to pour some of the butter out so that I wouldn’t have to work out for five hours.
I don’t have the biggest sweet tooth, so this came out a shade too sweet for my own personal liking. But keep in mind that I think a lot of things are “too sweet,” such as cupcake frosting and Publix birthday cakes.
In any case, it goes nicely with a cup of warm milk or a hot cup of tea. There’s a strong and distinct “earthy” flavor to black sesame that really enhances the “brownie” and makes it taste so much differently from your typical brownie.