Alpha Bakers -- Black and White Brownies

Brownies need frosting like this country needs Donald Trump. In. No. Way. In order to make any 'frosted-brownies' type recipe, I have to perform some mental gymnastics and turn the brownies into 'cake' in my head, thus negating their particular brownie qualities (dense fudginess, crackly top, ease of transport) but permitting them into the category of 'things that are acceptable with frosting'.

Mental tumbling achieved, here's the week's baking. It started with a pan of...cake. Brown fudgy...cake. Gently underbaked, minus the suggested pecans, and full of cream cheese and butter, the...cake...was baked and slipped into the refrigerator to cool. A loose, light, custardy white chocolate buttercream followed. The final touch was to be a bourbon ganache, but I resisted. And resisted. The whole thing was already sweet enough. It was one more step on a Saturday night. In the end, though, I couldn't resist the visual of the black and white layers, so I whipped up the chocolate ganache, adding a tablespoon of Portuguese cherry brandy.

The final product was very rich, very creamy, and in general the kind of thing that my workplace approves of, while they go and ignore perfectly delicious plum kuchen. I allowed a few of the twelve year olds to try it, and they told me that the white stuff was good but the chocolate ganache was 'kind of gross.' I'm assuming that the combo of very bitter chocolate and brandy wasn't for them. Then they stole a co-worker's string cheese and ran off.

Two year olds are so much more on my level than twelve year olds. Also, the Prospect Park Carousel has an excellent soundtrack. When every song began, little S, on the right, said 'I like this song!' His taste is questionable, as he followed that with a pretty rock'n'roll rendition of the Music Together classic 'Hello Everybody,' but at least he can appreciate quality.

Where in the World is Tuesdays with Dorie?

Tuesdays with Dorie, a fixture of my life for over two years, is fast winding down. Although I’ve nearly stopped blogging TWD recipes, and clearly don’t adhere to a Tuesday baking schedule, I still feel a certain regular resonance from that big dirty cookbook with the melted cover. This resonance takes the form of a kind of proprietary fondness, a connection to the tome that goes beyond following printed instructions toward a goal of dessert.

As the good bloggers hurtle their way to the finish line, I remind myself that it’s the journey that makes things interesting. In the interest of making up somewhat for the last few months, a brief overview of the unphotographed portions of the journey. Many were missed, but along the way…

Creamy Dark Chocolate Sorbet: Very soft, and popular. I found it overly sweet but a good companion to other ice creams of the moment, especially passion fruit and black pepper.

Salt and Pepper Shortbread: I make these all the time, they’re a popular Valentines Day cookie in my house, as well as being the go-to choice when out of eggs. It may say something about me that even when out of eggs I’m well stocked with cocoa.

Flip-Over Plum Cake: Buttery crisp-edged, very sweet. Lives somewhere between crisp and clafoutis. Ate it at all hours with a spoon.

Basic Biscuits: Basic. Excellent. Any excuse to make biscuits is warmly welcomed.

Bittersweet Brownies: Whipped up this November recipe quickly the other night. The only alteration I made was to sub in about ¼ cup of Bustelo grounds for the instant espresso powder. This made a big difference in the taste and seemed to leave the texture unaffected. Matt, who should be pretty jaded on the subject of late night desserts by this time, got misty-eyed on being told that hot brownies were available at 11pm, a condition that he described as ‘one of the best things that could happen.’ The morning-afters went to Jill, who had them for breakfast.

The TWD group is continuing the fight in the coming year with an earlier Dorie Greenspan collaboration--Baking With Julia. A companion volume to the PBS show of same name, this book contains contributions from a variety of American cooks and pastry chefs. While the writing will remain Dorie's, I'm looking forward to changing it up with this eclectic collection.

I've been very remiss, obviously, on the photo-taking front, but while you imagine all the the desserts mentioned above, you can admire this shot that my sister dug out of the archives from our 2008 trip to Uganda.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

This month's TWD recipes were so intuitive that I made almost all of them ahead. The night of these brownies was a good night for Matt and Jill, because if left to my own devices I will rarely make one of their favorite desserts. I love brownies, but oddly for me, I make no secret of my allegiance to the Ghirardelli mix--I like it better than almost any other brownie I've ever made. And since I don't usually keep mixes on hand (unlike this week's recipe maven, Tanya of Chocolatechic, who's realistic about her needs), that means there just aren't many brownies around, unless Dorie steps in. But really, if it's good enough for Julia (Child, as it happens), it's good enough for me. These were meant to be very lush, gooey brownies. I spread them thin and overbaked them on purpose, so they were more just rich, not the lava cakes that a lot of the TWD crowd came up with. Those looked good, though, so maybe I'll re-approach this one when I make brownies next year. 


For those of you are are more frequent brownie people or just want a good recipe, here it is.

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.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Hazelnut Cheesecake Brownies

I may have mentioned that my sister lives in Uganda. In Uganda, she has no refrigeration, no oven, and limited access to a variety of groceries. When I visited, I found all this to be surprisingly less of an issue than is sounds like on paper. She eats well and happily, but there is no question that her food limitations cause her to have a love/hate relationship with my blog.

In planning for her recent visit home, she mentioned several times that she hoped I would be baking for her, and must have mentioned it to some other people as well, because while she's been here I've gotten both a letter and a text message from a Ugandan friend of hers imploring me to make her all the cookies and candies that she desires, and possibly to send some back with her. Well, I don't know if these will make it on a two day plane trip, but I am at least fulfilling condition number one, and making her some lovely hazelnut cheesecake brownies. Not in the least self-serving and getting my TWD assignment out of the way. Pure sisterly altruism.

Well, these were supposed to be espresso cheesecake brownies, but as I began to make the cheesecake layer, I discovered that I'd clearly left my instant espresso powder at my parents' house last week. A quick substitution of hazelnut flavoring ensued.
But the general idea was fully realized--brownie bottom, marbled top layer of brownie and cheesecake. I haven't tasted them yet but they look very good.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies

Brownies. One of our snappiest American actresses, the sassy, classy, grande dame, is often remembered for her most shared recipe. No, not her French stews or even her roast chicken, not her blini nor her aspic, but her brownies. The world is full of contradictions.

Brownies are good--sometimes they're great, but they could never be called elegant, or even patrician. Probably it's one of those upper crust 'who-on-earth-do-I-have-to-impress' things, and my confusion is hopelessly bourgeois. Well, anyhow, I made La Kate's brownies the other day, slightly doctored up with coffee and cinnamon a la La Dorie.

They fell all apart, and they were soft and chewy, without being so fudgey that all I could taste was butter. The cinnamon and coffee were both strong, and next time I might pick one or the other, just to enjoy the purity more.

There were walnuts in the recipe too, but somehow I ignored them. I had also ignored the flour mixture of the recipe, but luckily noticed it sitting forlornly on the counter before it was too late, and stirred it in after the rest of the batter had been in the oven a few minutes.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chipster-Topped Brownies

I found this week's TWD challenge vaguely annoying. It falls into the category of twee names and Pillsbury Bake-Off type unnecessary recipe hybrids. Chocolate chip cookie dough baked on top of brownies? I mean, ok, nothing wrong with that, but...I don't think it improves either component and increases the possibility of over or under baking one or the other. I think I overbaked the chocolate chip part, waiting for the brownies. The whole thing came out a little dryer than I would have liked, but my Reference Services class ate it happily enough.

But, really. I don't mean to be a pastry prude, but why diminish two of America's finest desserts with this kind of overkill? It's so...well...American. Well, there you have it. I do love my country.

Tuesdays with Dorie #1 (for me): French Chocolate Brownies

I've joined new blog project, Tuesdays With Dorie. I'm too tired to expound about it tonight, but the basic premise is a blogging community where the members make one recipe a week from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. It's always nice to have a little direction, a little push to try something I might never have bothered to make, and to really familiarize myself with a cookbook writer's work.

Case in point: French Chocolate Brownies. These are a personal creation of Dorie's, a very buttery brownie with rum soaked raisins in. Despite Matt's opinion that those were a bit of a sneaky and unwelcome surprise, the overall effect was good. Rich and good, and well, brownies. I don't usually make brownies. They're not my favorite thing to eat, and I like the Ghirardelli mix brownies better than any of the richer ones. They're chewy and cakey with a hint of richness, and I've never seen any reason to do better. But if this sort of brownies are what you're into, these are an excellent specimen. I have many more thoughts about cookbooks and Dorie's in particular, but I guess I'll have plenty of time to go into it, every Tuesday till the book's done gone through.