Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate-Craisin Brownie Un-torte

Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself with Tuesdays with Dorie. I do weird things like bake all the recipes for a month the week that they are announced. While this could be looked on as admirable on-top-of-it-ness, it has a down side. The side where I burn out a bit,  and concentrate less on individual dishes. I have it on good authority that my TWD tone has been getting a little flippant. While it's true that anything I do weekly is going to be treated with a little less reverence than once in a lifetime achievements (and isn't that the point of this self-guided baking course?), I do want to do justice to the TWD baking projects, to write thoughtfully, take lovely pictures (hopefully with more step by step footage), and contextualize the posts in the larger TWD universe.

I will continue to substitute ingredients and to play with recipes. Why, after all, does the book have the ubiquitous 'playing around' insert? By and large, TWD is to be part of my weekly routine, and as such, it usually has to fit into my weekly schedule, budget, and supplies. I don't freak out if a recipe goes awry, and I don't twist myself into knots following rules.

But, and this is the point, I do care about what I make, and to re-orient myself to my writing and photography goals, I seized the day when it was my turn to select a recipe, and picked one of the book's most rich, and intricate recipes. The reveal will come next week, but be assured that the pick has already garnered both whines and cheers, ingredient consternation, and general hysteria on the TWD blog. Which of course amuses me no end. What those of you who commented on my 'TWD tone of snark' may not realize is that there is a whole little TWD community chat and comment thread that goes on weekly at www.TuesdayswithDorie.com, and that by the time I come to post about a recipe, I have already seen quite a bit of discussion about problems, questions, substitutions, failures and successes, and so the posts that I post are often positioned in inadvertent relation to that discussion. Some of it leaks into the comments on this site as well, as some of you who know me from non-TWD contexts have noticed. While I'm bemused by the occasional 'buck-up' comment when I haven't expressed self-doubt or dissatisfaction, I generally appreciate the support very much.Sometimes I'm annoyed, sometimes intrigued, often amused, and all of that comes into my commentary on the sweets as well.
For instance, this brownie un-torte. It was going to be a fudge-y brownie filled with kirsch-plumped cherries, topped with a mascarpone cream. It wound up more like a gooey (so gooey it had to be twice-baked) brownie-cake with Campari-plumped-orange-scented craisins, that never quite got topped. It just never quite made it. But, like anything with so much chocolate and orange flavor, it was good.