TWD: French Raspberry Chocolate Brownie Tarts

If there's a combination I love almost as much as Kahlua and Chocolate...it's Chocolate and Raspberries. When Di From Di's Kitchen Notebook chose French Chocolate Brownies this week for our Tuesdays with Dorie...I mentally filed the name and visual on the recipe away...but didn't do anything with it. Then on Saturday, I thought ... chocolate and raspberries. Then I started thinking...Chambord and chocolate. Oooh. We're onto something here. $29.99 later for a beautiful round bottle of Chambord, and a bag of frozen raspberries, and I was in business.



I doubled the recipe so that I'd have enough for an event I'm going to on Tuesday evening as well. After reading the P&Q on the TWD forum...I knew that the brownies took a little longer to cook than it seemed they might..and that the top would be crazy crazy crackly. There was a lot of unhappiness with the raisins and rum, honestly I just want to bake...adapt it to suit you, if you don't like the original recipe. That's the beauty of baking! It's good regardless.



Did anyone else notice the 6oz of chocolate in this recipe? That is like 2 full chocolate bars!! So because I doubled the recipe, it was almost 4 bars of chocolate..a 56% Vahlrona, a 71% Vahlrona, a 70% Dark Organic bar, and 1/2 of a leftover 61% Vahlrona. Crazy...I almost took a photo of the crumpled up choco carnage but I was too distracted trying to get my butter to melt into my chocolate.



After the melting...the batter itself was almost too easy. I love the sugar and egg fluffing. Added the chocolate, the dry, folded it together. Added the raspberries to the batter, poured the event brownies so that I wouldn't accidentally intoxicate anyone with too much Chambord at this event...and then the Chambord into the rest of the batter, which would be consumed later by lucky us.



I did a large pan of regular brownies, and baked our brownies in mini tart pans... hoping the brownies would rise and puff over the top kinda like a brioche, but it didn't quite happen that way. I let them bake extra long...and even then the inside bottom was still soft though yep the top was cutesy crackly. I kinda liked it.



Don't know that I'd call these a brownie..well maybe. Let them cool and tried to unmold from the little tart pans...even with a bunch of greasing, it was sooo not happening. Nevermind ... a spoon works just as well.



Let the big brownie block cool and cut it up. Ths is really a recipe that is hard to 'serve' well to others if they are using hands. The top is very crumbly and the whole thing wants to 'fall apart' when you touch it...it just begs you to eat the crumbs as they drop off. I had to oblige!!





The raspberries in these are amazing. The Chambord and raspberries are doubly amazing. I absolutely love raspberries...and berries in general. The funny thing is that the liquer totally seems to bake almost entirely out of the product. The non-Chambord batch tastes just a tiny bit less rich than the ones with Chambord. I prefer with but both are fabulous.

I would probably make them again but in individual little pans so that each person could use a spoon to eat it...brownie-wise they don't hold up quite as well to grubby hands'ing. But TASTE. The hub bit into one and said 'Mmmmmm'. That pretty much sums it up.



Check out the recipe at Di's blog and also the rest of the TWD commmunity's fabulously tasty brownies.