Bits and Bites

Because of other commitments this weekend I decided to do something completely out of the norm...I baked on a Saturday! Left with all the supplies I purchased last week I decided I wanted to make something to use the last of my couverture chocolate. Combine this with a tub of cream cheese in the fridge (left over from last weeks hummingbird cakes - more on that later) and a great recipe from Joy of Baking and you get the following result:

They are one of the the yummiest things I have made. I love the combination of the bitter sweet, moist dark chocolate brownie mixed with the salty, sweet cream cheese swirls. Thankfully I still have some left (I ate two yesterday!) to take to work on Monday.

Cream cheese brownies
From Joy of Baking

Brownie Layer

• 113 grams unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 114 grams unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/4 cups granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream Cheese Layer

• 227 grams cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C and place the rack in the center of the oven. Have ready a 9 x 9 inch (23 x 23 cm) square baking pan that has been lined with aluminum foil across the bottom and up two opposite sides of the pan. Set aside.

In a stainless steel (heatproof) bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla extract. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well (with a wooden spoon) after each addition. Stir in the flour and salt and beat, with a wooden spoon, until the batter is smooth and glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan (about one minute). Remove 1/2 cup of the brownie batter and set aside. Place the remainder of the brownie batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Then in the bowl of your food processor (or with a hand mixer), process the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, vanilla, and egg and process until creamy and smooth. Spread the cream cheese filling over the brownie layer. Spoon small dollops of the reserved brownie batter evenly on top of the cream cheese filling. Then with a table knife or wooden skewer, swirl the two batters without mixing them.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until the brownies start to pull away from the sides of the pan and the edges of the brownies are just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Refrigerate the brownies until they are firm enough to cut into squares (at least two hours). Once chilled, remove the brownies from the pan by lifting with the ends of the foil and transfer to a cutting board. With a sharp knife, cut into 16 squares. It is a good idea to have a damp cloth nearby to wipe your knife between cuts. These brownies can be stored in the refrigerator for several days.

Notes
I made a 1.5 quantity of the brownie mixture. I realised my brownie pan is much larger then the one specified in the recipe. As a result I used this as my "reserved" quantity to swirl together with the cream cheese. Unfortunately I didn't have enough cream cheese to make another half of that mixture. As a result of using more then a 1/2 cup of batter to swirl mine are a bit more chocolately on top. I don't mind this as it left a layer of cream cheese in the middle.

The lemon curd made in the previous post was for one of the macaroons my sister and I made last weekend. We were each responsible for different batches, the lemon curd was for my sisters lemon and lime macaroons (which she will hopefully post about on her blog), I however made the raspberry macaroons. We used a recipe and instructions from My Tartelette.

All in all the macaroons went fairly well, even though I stuffed up the chocolate ones, the didn't seem to be "wet" enough and grew MASSIVE. The other two batches turned out perfect though, they even grew nicely sized feet. It seems like the key to feet may in fact be the resting between piping and baking (which is what they are doing in the first picture!)

The second picture shows the macaroons on one of my Royal Tuscan plates. I'm an avid china collection and recently found a number of lovely Royal Tuscan hand painted trios on Ebay. I previously stuck to buying a lot of Royal Doulton and Royal Albert but have expanded my collection recently after finding other really beautiful options from a number of companies.

Last sunday my sister and I spent the afternoon baking. More details about what me made will be found in future posts (i.e. this afternoon), but one of the things we decided to make required a yummy, citrusy filling...LEMON CURD!

After my sister nixed Martha's recipe (too many eggs) we went to dear old Nigella. One thing I like about Nigella Lawson is she understands being impatient when cooking. She advises that instead of waiting...and waiting... for lemon curd to get curdy on a double boiler, to just whack it on low heat and stir, stir, stir. This method worked great and as you can see for the second photo it turned a lemon-yellow colour and lovely and glossy.

Lemon Curd
From Nigella Lawson's How to Eat

• 4 organic or unwaxed lemons
• 4 eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 300g caster sugar
• 200g unsalted butter

Remove the zest from the lemons. The best way of doing this is with a zester, not a grater (I actually used my microplane for this - very easy to clean). If you use a grater, you spend hours with a knife trying to chisel out the stuck bits later. Squeeze the juice out of the lemons after you've removed the zest.

Beat the eggs, yolks and sugar together until the sugar's dissolved. Add the butter, lemon juice and zest and heat gently in a pan on a low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and looks, in fact, like lemon curd. If it's in danger of curdling, dunk the pan into icy water in the sink, and beat like fury.

Put the lemon curd into sterilised jars, seal and keep in the fridge. This makes about 2 jars, depending on their size.