Disproportionate Cheesecake

This is me trying to fit in.

One of my hopes for this blog is that it will not become just another precious, obscenity-free homage to sugar. If it does I will no doubt be readerless; there are many bloggers who are better at baking/photographing/driveling than I. Ergo, I beg for internet attention by both exploiting an obscure dessert niche and by holding fast to my snarky tone.

My cool cynicism, however, fools few. I'm behaving like the sarcastic, chubby friend everyone knows, the one who compensates for a lack of remarkable traits by being quick to scathe the outstanding qualities of others. Just as Sarcastic Chubby Friend secretly yearns to wear a floral-print sundress - or madras slacks, if male - I wish I were half as good at food photography as most other baking bloggers. (I'll not be coy; I am one of the better writers among typists who know what tuile is. But nobody's going to comment on my Flickr photos because I know how to tango with a thesaurus).

I baked these Disproportionate Cheesecakes because the best part of any cheesecake is its graham cracker crust. Deb and Anna can back me up on this, though Mandy, you may be stunting the growth of your little fellas by leaving them crustless. I digress. The Disproportionate Cheesecakes have a cookie-like texture that amplifies the honey-cinnamon essence of graham crackers. The cream cheese frosting consists of only three ingredients - cold cream cheese, sifted powdered sugar, and vanilla extract - and its sweet tang brightens the flavor of the bar. I initially added the strawberries as a garnish; taste tests confirm their necessity in the recipe.

In an effort to out-twee my competition, I posed the Disproportionate Cheesecakes to make them look sexier than they really are. Notice the deconstructed plating style with its tip of the hat to minimalism (do minimalists accessorize?). Let your eyes relax before the simple palette. Discern the symbolism behind the symmetry, but don't ask me what it is. Acerbic bloggers are above art criticism.

Disproportionate Cheesecake

Graham Cracker Bars
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch salt
6 tbs. butter, melted
1 3/4 c. crushed graham crackers
1 egg
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbs. honey

Cheesecake Frosting
3/4 c. sifted powdered sugar
1 8-oz. package of cream cheese, cold
2 tsp. vanilla extract

To make Graham Cracker Bars:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8 x 8-inch square pan.

In a small bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. In another bowl, combine melted butter and graham crackers. In yet another bowl, whisk egg with brown sugar. Add vanilla to egg and sugar; stir in graham cracker mixture and then honey. Finally, fold in flour mixture. Spread in pan - dough will be quite sticky.

Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool.

To make Cheesecake Frosting:

Gently blend cream cheese and vanilla extract. Do not overmix. Fold in one-third of the powdered sugar at a time until icing is smooth. Spread evenly on cooled Graham Cracker Bars. Garnish with strawberry slices, if desired.

Butterless Buzz Brownies

Close your eyes and try to remember the last time you were satisfied by a reduced-fat baked good. Recall the texture: did it feel like dessicated cardboard on your tongue, or was it more like sawdust? Recapture the baked good's flavor. If your memory is failing you, suck on chalk.

The urge to consume massive amounts of chocolate hit me recently, and it hit me hard. This happens frequently; in fact, it happened the previous night and motivated me to strip a supermarket-brand cake of its frosted coat, leaving behind a naked, shivering coal-lump of a chocolate cake. I was still feeling guilty about the episode, and that guilt was an obstacle to present-day indulgence. So too the bantam bar of butter in my refrigerator.

In short, I had no choice but to turn to a reduced-fat brownie recipe from the Joy of Cooking, requiring as it did neither butter nor 500 crunches to prepare and consume mindlessly.

Desserts without butter are, for the most part, gastronomically offensive. The French lord over the domain of desserts because they take baths in butter, even if infrequently. On the other hand, Asian desserts are...well, let's put it this way: it feels wrong to type "Asian desserts." Butter is not a celebrity in most Asian cuisines.

I was nervous that these butterless brownies would not be intense enough to quell my chocolate craving, since the chocolate takes a backseat to three different forms of sugar in this recipe. I borrowed a trick from Ina Garten and added coffee grounds (hence the 'buzz') to the dry ingredients in lieu of cocoa powder. Instead of using vegetable oil as my butter substitute, I used olive oil. There was no olive oil taste, and the coffee grounds added notable depth - if the slightest soft grit - to the dark chocolate flavor of the brownies. To my surprise, these brownies ended up being stick-to-your-teeth fudgy. Note that the coffee flavor is VERY intense right out of the oven. Let the Butterless Buzz brownies cool overnight and you'll be treated to a bold, roasted chocolate flavor in the morning.Butterless Buzz Brownies

3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbl. coffee grounds
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. olive oil
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
2 tbl. light corn syrup
1 tbl. brewed coffee
2 tsp. vanilla
2 large egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8 x 8-inch pan. Whisk together first four ingredients.


2. In a medium-sized saucepan over very low heat, combine 4 oz. chocolate chips and olive oil. Stir constantly until melted. Remove from heat.


3. Stir into chocolate mixture until well combined the brown sugar, sugar, corn syrup, coffee, and vanilla. Add egg whites and stir until the mixture is smooth, not grainy. Fold in remaining chocolate chips.
   


4. Scrape batter into prepared pan and spread to edges. Batter will be sticky. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean if a little fudgy at the bottom. Let cool. Consume and be caffeinated.
   

New York Times Tête-à-Tête (III)

Gabby was in my French class. There were many reasons to hate her, chief and most puzzling among them the fact that she spoke French fluently. Also, she was a porcelain-complected redhead with a button nose, no body fat, and the easy self-confidence of a woman twice her age. Amidst her cripplingly awkward, puberty-stricken peers, Gabby looked as out of place as a quadriplegic 'Nam vet on the uneven bars.

The French Chocolate Brownies are similarly displaced as one of three prototypical brownie recipes as selected by the New York Times. And they're French, so that association also provoked the weak simile you just suffered through.

The recipes for French Chocolate and Supernatural Brownies differ only slightly, but the relative results suggest no shared evolutionary paths. The French Chocolates are so cake-like, their chocolate taste so mellow, that an identity crisis seems imminent. What keeps me from calling a spade a spade, however, is the following bucolic image:

It's a mild, dewy Sunday afternoon in late March. A puff of a breeze carries the scent of fresh cut grass and the sound of laughing preschoolers around tables dressed in red-checkered tablecloths, tablecloths by now tattooed with ketchup, mustard, and potato salad stains. The time for dessert has arrived, but one question remains:

Q: What dessert will satisfy the demands of ruffle-socked towheads with sensitive little palates and their pretentious mothers, pinkies perpetually pointing skyward?

A: These brownies develop a delicate, flaky crust, not unlike phyllo dough in texture. This photograph doesn't do justice to the billowy height of the French Chocolate Brownies, but it's a big part of their appeal. Even small squares seem bounteous; you inner glutton will luxuriate in biting into a brownie that keeps on going. This psychological trick is complemented by the brownie's moist, fluffy crumb and its cloyingly sweet chocolate flavor; no single mouthful satisfies a chocolate craving. And yet, every single mouthful satisfies the desire for a mouthful of brownie.

By my standards, the French Chocolate Brownies are just barely brownies. They are light and buttery at the expense of being chocolatey, and chocolateyness is the best feature of the brownie. But because these brownies are appealingly mild and would not overwhelm children, the elderly, or pregnant women, I am making room for them in my pantheon of sweets. I would recommend you do the same, especially if you're juvenile, geriatric, or gestating.

(Thanks for the photo, BBC Sport!)

New York Times Tête-à-Tête (II)

Before I compare the New Classic Brownies to the aforementioned Supernatural Brownies, I should - as your arbiter of recipe reputability - disclose my biases. Sure, an objectively perfect brownie cannot and should not exist. To each his own brownie that promises bliss. My personal preferences, however, make a fine foundation for anyone's standards of brownie excellence:

• Texture - The density of my ideal brownie falls somewhere between that of a tar pit and a black hole. If we're going to be partisan about it, yes, I will vote Fudgy this November. I pardon undercooked brownies with papal mercy, though I prefer solid to soupy baked goods. Chocolate chunks - cooled overnight into solid nuggets of chocolate - should be present in every bite of my brownie.
  
• Flavor - The darker the chocolate, the brighter my day. My proclivity for chocolat noir does not inhibit any fondness for milk or white chocolate, but if presented a multiracial plate of brownies (circumstances of circumstances!), I would pick those brownies holding Nietzchean worldviews.
  
• Presentation - Now is not the time to get cute with portion control. So squat, square, and sizeable are my ideal brownies that a dozen of them would suffice to build a wind-proof fort for five toddlers. Icing need not act as mortar. Efforts at artful plating are wasted on me.

I usually try to sideline my prejudices when judging others (celebrities excepted). With the New Classic Brownies, I didn't have to.

The preparation of New Classic Brownies required just one bowl. The batter was gritty and its consistency was not unlike magma, which to me was a promising sign. Unlike the Supernatural and French Chocolate Brownies, the New Classic recipe called for unsweetened chocolate. This accounted for their darker matte, mahogany hue.

Cigars would have paired perfectly with these brownies, both being indiscreet oral fixations of the smoky variety. The dark chocolate dominates the palate, seeps into the bloodstream, and elicits a high that might put nicotine out of a job. New Classic Brownies are essentially gilded frames in which to showcase fantastic chocolate, so break out the Valrhona for this recipe. These brownies are thick but not greasy; they pose no threat to cloth napkins or power suits and thus are all the better for dining on a higher plane of pretension.

The corollary to such an advantage: New Classic Brownies are too bitter for immature taste buds. I baked the three New York Times brownie recipes to reward sixth graders for good behavior, and the New Classic Brownies were least favored by the students. Playful brownies these are not.

Rather, New Classic Brownies are at home amidst affluence. They are powerful, serious, and rich. Serve these brownies to the most discriminating investment bankers, lawyers, and doctors you know. After dessert, they'll be in your debt.

New York Times Tête-à-Tête (I)

If you're reading this blog, you're likely the kind of sophisticated foodie who would have devoured Julia Moskin's article, "Simple Pleasure, American Style" in the New York Times last April. Moskin deftly described the history and defining characteristics of the brownie and sprinkled her piece with technical points from seasoned bakers. By now many bloggers have tried one of the three brownie recipes that accompanied the article: Supernatural Brownies, New Classic Brownies, and French Chocolate Brownies. The goal of Moskin's article seemed to be to pinpoint the perfect brownie recipe; bloggers interpreted the Supernatural Brownies as such since they were the author's favorite, neither too fudgey (like the New Classic Brownies) nor too cakey (like the French Chocolate Brownie).

Jennifer at Bake or Break liked them, as did Jessica at This Mama Cooks. But they didn't cure The Wednesday Chef's craving for a thick, chocolatey slab of a brownie, and with her I empathize. From ribbony batter to fully baked, the Supernatural Brownies resembled good boxed brownies, but nothing more. I should know because the Supernatural Brownies were the first brownies I ever made from scratch, and they gave me little reason to make brownies from scratch a second time. Though the brownies were toothsome - light, chewy, definitely chocolate, in sum perfectly adequate - epitomic of their kind they were not.

The Supernatural Brownies, in fact, could not have been perfect. The bipolar scale on which we judge brownies, based on texture, reflects the gradations of our preferences. If we can't agree on a standard for at least one variable of the brownie, how can we agree that any brownie is perfect?

We shouldn't. When we strain to assign brownies superlative titles, we undercut their culinary flexibility. Let's instead define each brownie by what makes it uniquely satisfying.

In light of all this, I stand by my statement that the Supernatural Brownies are not quite supernatural. My new verdict: these are fantastic 'base' brownies. They are easy to prepare and not overwhelmingly rich, practically begging for the company of caramel, peanut butter, candy, etc. Turn to this recipe when you feel like experimenting; you'll feel no great loss if you ruin a batch.

I was not content to test only Moskin's favorite brownie recipe; I also baked a pan of the New Classic and French Chocolate Brownies, and both had more personality than the Supernatural Brownies. Deserving as they are of their own posts, I invite you to revisit Brownie or Die and see how the New York Times' three 'best' brownies compare in a brutal tête-à-tête.

Disclaimer: I apologize for my painfully mediocre photography skills - made worse by general fatigue and time constraints - which do none of these brownies justice.

Trashy Blondes

In 2007 we watched a parade of classless women dress themselves to the nines, drink themselves to fame, and then hit their heads on cop car roofs. Why didn't we turn away? Because incidences offered by Paris, Lindsay, Britney, et al. give us the chance to say - free of irony - "What was she thinking?!" We are safe from snappy comebacks because most of us have never taken Jell-O shots during custody battles.

Since I want this blog to be just as difficult to turn away from as an inebriated Olsen twin, I added crushed pretzels and powdered graham crackers (both generic-brand) to an innocent blondie recipe. The resulting bars I called Trashy Blondes. What was I thinking, right?

The graham crackers added a not-unpleasant sandy texture to the bar, but their contribution to the blondie's flavor was unidentifiable. The pretzels' snap must have staled in the oven. White, chunky, and sweet though both white chocolate chips and Dr. Phil may be, neither could offer enough support to save these Trashy Blondes.

So why share this recipe at all? Three reasons.

1. I need a second post, stat.
2. Trashy Blondes, even in subprime states, photograph gloriously well. Sober brownies would be green for envy if they were not inherently, you know, brown.
3. The blondie recipe that I violated in the process of making Trashy Blondes is worth its weight is gold. It's from the Joy of Cooking, a book on which I swear in court whenever a Bible is absent.

You can decide how to accessorize your blondes. Remember, police tracking ankle bracelets are mandatory.

Trashy Blondes















1/3 c. crushed graham crackers
1/3 c. crushed pretzel sticks
4 oz. white chocolate baking bar, broken into little shards
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 stick unsalted butter
2/3 c. packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tbl. light corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with greased aluminum foil, leaving a little overhang on the sides to later facilitate removing the Trashy Blondes later (if only it were so simple in real life).

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large, heavy saucepan, melt and then boil the butter until it is light golden brown, stirring continuously. This happens rather quickly after about 4 minutes.

4. Remove butter from heat; stir in the brown sugar and white sugar. Let cool until "barely warm." Then stir the egg, egg yolk, corn syrup, and vanilla into the butter-sugar mixture.

5. Next stir in the flour mixture, graham cracker crumbs, white chocolate chunks, and pretzel bits. Pour the batter into the pan, spread to the edges, and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool before lifting Trashy Blondes from the pan and cutting in cute little squares. Or just make a wreck of it in the pan.

Mission Statement

For a minute, I hesitated to write the word "dessert" in this blog's subtitle.

But I realized with self-conscious clarity that to type anything but "dessert" would defeat the purpose of BROWNIE OR DIE (henceforth, BOD). My moment of pause revealed how impulsive is the knee-jerk condescension towards the brownie: we do not naturally consider fudgey four-by-fours dessert in and of themselves. Nay, only pinned under an icy fist of ice cream can any chef put a brownie on the dessert menu. We call this dish "brownie a la mode" to soften the cruel reality of the situation and appease the French. Sound like any other attitudinal approach of historic import?

Let us hate on the brownie for a few sentences: the brownie is bourgeoisie. It is a dessert with little potential for dramatic presentation and limited flavor flexibility. Baking acceptable brownies is contingent not upon culinary brownies, but a good box mix (more on that later). Brownies are not nutritious. At all.

Now ask yourself: are these flaws inherent shortcomings of the brownie, or are they reflective of our inabilities as a society to alchemize chocolate, sugar, butter, and eggs into art?

On behalf of all brownies, I demand respect. Join me in my crusade for better brownies from better bakers! (Scream here if you'd like, but not for ice cream).