Raspberry sauce for brownies

[Carla]

Hi! I'm new to baking and I really want to try some brownies with a fresh raspberry sauce. I'm worried that the water from the raspberry sauce will ruin the chocolate but I want the raspberry flavor in the brownies. I don't want to put fresh raspberries in the batter. What can I do to make sure the raspberry flavor is in the batter and not ruin the chocolate?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Hello Carla welcome to the forum.

The key is controlling the added moisture content that comes with mixing fruit purée into a batter.

There’s two approaches you can use. One would be to use raspberry jam. since the moisture content is very low, there’s less chance of adverse impact to the batter.

The other approach would be to reduce the moisture in the purée. Rose Levy Beranbaum devised a method for fruit purée that maximizes the fruit flavor while reducing moisture. It’s a bit time consuming, but if you want to use fruit this is really the best approach.

The method is in Levy Beranbaum’s cookbooks. The link below is to an independent blogger who posted the instructions.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/localkitchenblog.com/2009/06/19/roses-strawberry-puree/amp/

 

[Teeth Brusher]

Hi! I'm new to baking and I really want to try some brownies with a fresh raspberry sauce. I'm worried that the water from the raspberry sauce will ruin the chocolate but I want the raspberry flavor in the brownies. I don't want to put fresh raspberries in the batter. What can I do to make sure the raspberry flavor is in the batter and not ruin the chocolate?

I’m not sure how helpful this is, but I recall reading a recipe a while back for strawberry cake that seemed promising. Evidently fresh strawberries were not able to achieve an intense strawberry flavor, but frozen ones were. Maybe using frozen raspberries would provide flavor without the moisture problem?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I’m not sure how helpful this is, but I recall reading a recipe a while back for strawberry cake that seemed promising. Evidently fresh strawberries were not able to achieve an intense strawberry flavor, but frozen ones were. Maybe using frozen raspberries would provide flavor without the moisture problem?

Yes that is correct. Rose Levy Berambaum’s berry purée method is based on frozen fruit for that very reason. Fresh fruit must be picked before it is fully ripe. So it has no flavor. Frozen fruit is generally picked fully ripe, then immediately flash frozen. For berry pies I always use frozen fruit. Since people can get worked up
over frozen fruit, I never tell anyone that the blueberry pie they’re eating is from frozen fruit

 

[Teeth Brusher]

Lol nice! People don’t need to know EVERYTHING!

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum @Carla

I'm a big fan of the chocolate and raspberry combo - the sweetness of the chocolate and the tartness of the raspberry work wonderfully together. I've tried putting freeze-dried raspberries into brownie batter before and it worked quite well. I also love plain brownies with raspberry sorbet.

 

[AuntJamelle]

I love raspberry flavor - especially with chocolate! I just hate getting all the seeds out of the fruit puree - takes for-EV-AH! At least it feels like it!