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.