basic brownies

I know brownie baking is very much a practice of personal preference, and there's no pleasing everyone. I'm a corner piece gal myself. We made a double batch for the Food Championship aftermath lunch, and they were just the right amount of fudgy and cakey to please most palates. I suppose the palate also adapts in the face of free brownies, but I think they were pretty solid by any standard.

This recipe uses one of my favorite baking with chocolate tricks by incorporating coffee into the batter. Nevermind that I've never worked a coffeemaker before and had to ask one of my cohorts to do it for me. Grad school is about discovery, right? The astringency of the brew balances the richness of the chocolate and adds a nice warm undertone of something good you can't quite put your finger on. The use of brown sugar instead of the standard white is a nice touch. This recipe happens to be vegan, too.

The brownies are fairly sticky, so I highly recommend lining your pan with parchment paper, and maybe spraying it, too.

Basic Brownies
Adapted from a source I can no longer find

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

3/4 c coffee
3/4 c soy milk (I use unsweetened)
1/2 c canola oil

3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven 350 F.

Mix all the dry ingredients (brown sugar included) together. Combine the coffee, soy milk, and canola oil. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients while stirring. Throw in the chocolate chips or any other brownie flair of your choice.

Pour into parchment lined 9x9-in pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, or to the fudginess of your liking.

espresso cheesecake brownies

This weekend I had a friend visit which translated into a blitz of the culinary indulgences Davis has to offer - late night burgers, farmers' market pastries, crepes, dinner parties, dim sum, lattes, bubble tea... And as if that wasn't enough, I had them pick any recipe out of Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours to make for dessert.

Espresso cheesecake brownies. You can't lose, right? A layer of cheesecake baked on top of a layer of brownie should totally be money.

While I won't deny I ate a fair share of the pan, I didn't really find myself craving more. The brownie layer was just sweet enough and contrasted well with its richer cheesecake counterpart, but it didn't quite hit the spot. Aesthetically, these aren't the prettiest either. The recipe called for dropping spoonfuls of brownie batter over the cheesecake layer and swirling, but we discovered that the two layers had rather different densities. The brownie batter sank straight to the bottom and resulted in what you see above.

These brownies also experience a temperature dichotomy. Straight out of the fridge, the brownie layer is too hard to cut and practically fudge (yay saturated fats!). If you let it come to room temperature, then the cheesecake layer is too warm and doesn't hold up well to slicing. Food safety gets a little dicey there, too. In all, I had fun making this but would turn to another recipe in the future!