When in Doubt or Freezing, Make Brownies

So, obviously, WOOL DAYS was totally fantastic. We saw sheep being sheared and lambs gamboling with wild abandon. We saw cloth being woven and pots being thrown and old timey leaflets being printed. I BOUGHT A BONNET, YOU GUYS, I REALLY DID BUY A BONNET. IT'S AWESOME. And the upshot to being us and therefore, you know, nutso, was that we were there at 9.30 when it opened, so by the time it got properly hot and crowded with harassed parents and their screaming children, we had toured the village, read the placards, tried our hands at carding wool (obviously sanitizing immediately afterwards), and even had time for a peaceful iced tea break at the reenactment General Store.

[side note: is it really necessary to provide a cafe in the dead centre of Old Sturbridge Village that serves french fries and hot dogs and pepsi? I don't think so. I'm not saying that they should only serve, you know, mutton, or whatever, but I do feel that a small attempt at authenticity here would not go amiss. There's nothing that jars you out of your happy 19th century fantasy faster than a seven year old boy smeared in ketchup carrying a Big Gulp larger than his head. I'm just saying.]

The only thing that was left was to stop at the much-touted farmers market on the way out, get some berries and honey and veggies and hit the road. 

So let me tell you about that. 

It was four stalls. One had plants. So. Three stalls. One had honey, fine. We got some honey. The other had those farmers market cookies that look really good at the time but once you buy an entire bag of them for $15 or whatever you realise that yeah they're ok but not $15 ok. The final stall had an enormous cooler full of bacon and sausages and steaks. So. Yeah. 

THERE WERE NO BERRIES. THERE WERE NO VEGETABLES. There were no stalls of wool, of beeswax candles, of lavender sachets. THERE WERE FOUR STALLS AND ONE WAS PLANTS AND ONE WAS PORK. 

We were disappointed, to say the least. We discussed our disappointment, um, vociferously?, all the way back home, with brief pauses for me to direct our car from the passenger seat with things like TURN HERE TURN HERE JUST FOLLOW THE RED SUV NO THE RED ONE THE ONE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU NO THIS IS NOT OUR EXIT IT SAID LEFT IN TWO MILES WE'VE DRIVEN TWO FEET DO YOU REALLY WANT TO GO TO WORCESTER NO I DIDN'T THINK SO SO WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO MERGE ONTO I-90 NORTH JUST FOLLOW THE DAMN RED SUV. 

The point of this little intro is to help explain that I was all ready and eager to make something for the LL's this week chock full of summer farmers market berries, something that would kick off summer and look all pretty and seasonal, and how I was cruelly thwarted in those attempts. 

But it turned out all right in the end, because Wednesday, baking day, dawned grey and rainy and frigid, with me huddled under a comforter and three blankets, with a sheen of frost on the field, and with me yelling across the hall WHY IS IT SO FREAKING COLD. 

So, partly because I had no berries, and partly because there was nothing summery about the day, I ended up making Brownies. Because, frankly, there is never NOT a good reason to make brownies. Brownies are comforting and delicious and easy and if nothing else give you an excuse to turn on the oven and stand next to it for a while. 

And also because I found the chocolate hoard I'd apparently created over the winter and forgotten about, in a wicker basket under one of the kitchen benches, and, I mean, we're talking Doomsday Preppers hoard here, and it seemed prudent to make a dent in it before someone else found it and declared me mentally unfit.

I mean, I know people say "You can never have too much chocolate."
But those people have never seen my secret baking stash.

LACK OF FARMERS MARKET BERRIES AND FREEZING COLD DAY BROWNIES

or

CREAM CHEESE BROWNIES

which are really 

NEUFCHATEL BROWNIES

The recipe for these is for "Rich Espresso and Cream Cheese Brownies" from the Bon Appetit Cookbook by Barbara Fairchild. I didn't add espresso to the cream cheese part because I did baking-with-coffee two weeks ago, and didn't add walnuts, because, if you're making a cream cheese brownie, why do you need walnuts? Exactly.

This was my first attempt at Cream Cheese Brownies (I KNOW, RIGHT?) so I was a bit apprehensive. I mean, I've eaten my fair share of cream cheese brownies, don't get me wrong, but make them? Nope. Not yet. This is probably mostly completely because Mum doesn't like cream cheese, and everytime the concept of cream cheese brownies comes up she delicately wrinkles her nose and says "Cream cheese is disgusting."

And when I point out, as I do, every time, that cream cheese is what makes up the bulk of not only Ginger but Pumpkin Cheesecake (which she has absolutely no issues with, for the record) she says "Well that's different."

And then I go do something else in another room for a little while.

The deal with these, like everything else I've made that requires cream cheese in the past, is that I used Neufchatel. Which is a fancypants way of saying "light cream cheese" although technically it is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CHEESE dating back to Normandy in the 6th century, and, thank you Wikipedia, is the reason that cream cheese exists because William Lawrence of Chester, NY, was trying to make Neufchatel in 1872 and messed it up. HOW'S THAT FOR A TRIVIA NUGGET. YOU'RE WELCOME. Below is the plain, no espresso, Neufchatel, "light", cream cheese brownie recipe I used. 

NEUFCHATEL BROWNIES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 2 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg, separated
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 12 oz Neufchatel cheese
• 1 cup powdered sugar 

Melt butter and chocolate together in a microwavable bowl, stirring until totally smooth. Set aside to cool slightly. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.

Cream the brown sugar, 2 of the eggs, and the egg yolk in a mixmaster until "very thick and billowy." Fold in the chocolate, and then the flour mixtures.

Transfer about 1/3 of a cup of the batter to another bowl - you're going to use it later after you add the cream cheese part. Spread the rest of the batter into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking pan, and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.

Now the topping. Beat the powdered sugar and Neufchatel in your mixmaster until very smooth, then add the one remaining egg and the egg white.

Spread the Neufchatel mixture over the chilled chocolate mixture. Put that previously set aside chocolate batter into a pastry bag (!!!!) and pipe over the cheese. This recipe indicates that you should pipe parallel lines and then swirl them with a toothpick. I was having WAY too much fun with the pastry bag, obviously, so I went for a grid, as you can see.

Bake at 325 degrees for, this is what Barbara Franklin says, 33 minutes, until puffy and golden. Cool in the pan before cutting and turning out. 

BEETLE NOTES

LL's please weigh in because I have yet to get final verdict on these. Mum deigned to try one and said it was good, but I do not trust her Cream Cheese / Neufchatel Brownie judgement AT ALL, so I'm hoping you guys have some feedback (and obviously hoping said feedback is not "um, Beetle, WTF").

I think I should have made the bottom chocolate layer thicker? It seemed very thin in the end. Or perhaps I should have used an 8 x 8 pan instead of a 9 x 13. They seemed like very thin brownies, and I would have liked them to have been big, thick WEDGES of dark chocolatey whippy cheesey awesomeness. They looked a bit too delicate for my liking. You can't tell the thickness of them from the photos, but they definitely didn't give that characteristic, optimal brownie heft that says "what you're about to eat is flipping wonderful and will take you ten minutes of chewing and swallowing just to manage 'OMG.'"

I ended up delivering the entire pan, complete with brownie knife and paper plates, to the library yesterday. This is because I tried to cut them up and transfer them to a carrier, but gave up after about 5 seconds. They were not going to come out of the pan in nicely cut squares, and I knew that if I kept it up I would end up with a pile of fragments that only vaguely resembled brownies. Maybe it was because I should have made them thicker? Maybe I let it go in the oven a bit too long? At 33 minutes the top was still pure white, and I left it in for a few longer until they were the golden colour you see below. Maybe that was a mistake?

Anyway, as a first time Cream Cheese Brownie experiment, at least I did not completely ruin them. They still looked and smelled like brownies (which is to say warm and delicious and chocolatey), and Mum did not spit hers out as she did with the coffee-cake-from-hell-CEF-disaster. 

AND, BONUS, I got to use my pastry bag. So, even if they turned out weird and crusty and semi-burnt and "don't ever use light cream cheese again because it doesn't work" and "maybe your mom was right about cream cheese brownies being gross can you please never make these again", and "for the love of all that is holy can we have something else next week" at least I got ten minutes of pastry bag happiness. 

Fingers crossed I get berries tomorrow, you guys, BFF and I are going on a country lane walk and farmers market raid, and if I can get my hands on strawberries or blackberries or rhubarb, I have some ideas that I have been DYING to try out. Because . . . 

IT'S JUNE ON SUNDAY, EVERYONE. AND BERRY BASED PIES AND TARTS AND CUSTARDS AND CONFECTIONS NEED TO BE MADE. 

EVEN IF I HAVE TO WEAR SNOWPANTS TO MAKE THEM. 

Happy Weekend!

Love,
Beetle