DISASTER BAKING #11: Cheesecake-Swirled Brownies for an Investment in Our Future
Dear Disaster Bakers,
Much like the most recent episode of Below Deck, the headlines have been bleak. Malevolent, but also sad.
Hundreds of journalists have and will continue to lose their jobs, with cuts slated to hit HuffPost, BuzzFeed, and Gannett newspapers. Over 800,000 federal workers will finish another week without compensation and even if the shutdown ends this second as MSNBC indicates it will the harm done over the past month is incalculable. Plus, the usual zero women were nominated for Best Director at the Oscars. And NBC is determined to prove it knows how to be racist no matter who hosts the third hour of Today.
Fine! We get it!
I'm here to give out cheesecake-swirled brownies, not #hottakes, but I do recommend this piece from Adam Serwer at the Atlantic for all six people who want to read even more about the MAGA-hatted teen.
In the meantime, an aside: When I was in high school our teachers sometimes took us to Central Park for a little treat. This is what happens to children raised in New York. Time outdoors is a reward. The afternoon I remember—we must have been around 15 or 16. Near the park entrance on East 79th Street, we saw a mime. The woman had painted her face and chest. She had a basket with a few dollars in front of her. She wore this wild dress. Like, if H&M had done a collaboration with Renoir.
I passed her, but then heard noise behind me. Someone we'll call Dan was six inches from her, with a semi-circle of people crowded around him. You know Dan. He was (is, I'd think) loud and obnoxious and rich. He'd come to class 20 minutes late and drop his stuff with a thud. Expensive coat, flung. Backpack open. Homework never done. Terrible grades—not that it mattered. He would inherit success.
So with the mime, who knows what started it. But I heard him, even from a distance. "Say hi." The mime smiled and waved. There were 30 of us spread out around him, up the hill, on benches. "Say hi!" he commanded. She bobbed a little. She waved. "I'll give you $20 bucks if you talk," he said. The mime laughed a little, but now she looked pained. She put a finger to her lips. I can't.
"Look," he said, with the same thin smile that's been plastered all over the internet this week. He pulled an $100 bill from his wallet and waved it around. "Say hi." She blushed so red I could see it beneath her makeup. She paused. "Hi," she said. Then he tossed the bill at her feet. I looked around, agape. One of the teachers seemed like she was about to burst into tears. But someone clapped him on the back. This dude! And someone else laughed. And we all dispersed. I wanted to be swallowed whole.
The people I'm friends with from high school—we still talk about it. Someone goes, "Remember that time Dan bribed the mime." And we wince. We should have intervened. Someone should have intervened. Some grown-up. With conviction! But we didn't.
With each bad headline or cruel announcement, I'm filled all over with a rush to do more. More to support people who've come to America because their lives are threatened at home, more to help women who want to make reproductive choices that are too expensive, more to end draconian voter ID laws, more, more, more. But Dan is the evidence that protests and marches and even votes and laws can't fix what's rotten alone. The values we care most about—we could stand up for them on a random afternoon at 2 p.m. We have a gazillion opportunities to choose between a terrible outcome and one we could live with. And when we pretend we don't have them, that's a choice too.
Have I somehow forced us to read 500 words about Dan and none about the four women now in the presidential race? Unbelievable. Savannah Guthrie, Look What You Made Me Do.
Some two dozen months after people wondered whether Clinton's loss would put ladies off electoral politics forever, a record number of women were elected to the House of Representatives and four women are now in contention for the Oval Office. This is wild! But it's also...not? The past three weeks have done what the previous two centuries could not. Welcome to our new lives! It's normal to watch women run for president. I was so elated and bewildered I had to write about the phenomenon here.
I don't mean to be glib, but now I think it's time to make these brownies. The Iowa caucuses aren't for another 9,000 or so hours. By then at least 864 new candidates will be in the race. At least 62 more Trump campaign officials will be under arrest! More bad stuff is bound to happen. In the meantime, the least we can do is make brownies that are done in under 60 minutes for people we love. I can't predict what'll happen in this godforsaken place in the next two hours, let alone the next 55 weeks, but I feel sure cheesecake brownies will not make it worse. Warm or room-temperature. Cold from the freezer. A cross between lava cake and chocolate fudge, but a little sluttier.
Make this stew for basic nutrition and then eat brownies for dessert. Or just pile three brownies in a bowl and call it dinner. ILY no matter what.
Cheesecake-Swirled Brownies
Servings: 16 brownies (or 8, I don't judge)
Distractability: 5
Scratchpad: Two points for recipes that combine melted butter and chocolate, those are the new rules. One point for a cheesecake swirl that's a million times more impressive than it is hard to make. One point for the addition of chocolate chips because no one will gild the lily for you. Be a gilder of your own lily. Two points for the fact that these brownies get even better after 24 hours and are almost impossible to overcook. Whatever the future holds, chocolate will improve it. I should add: Donald Trump Jr. does not subscribe to this newsletter, but if he did he would be excluded from that promise.
Notes: This recipe is based on versions from David Lebovitz and Smitten Kitchen, with several tweaks to maximize fudginess and heft. A brownie to sink our goddamn teeth into, OK? A brownie that doesn't make us choose between ooze and chew or whipped cheesecake and dense, dark chocolate. Let's not pick.
Ingredients:
Brownie Batter
1 stick (113 grams or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 ounces (115 grams) unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate, chopped.
1 cup (200 grams) sugar
1 tablespoon (5 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup (80 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (80 grams) chocolate chips
Cheesecake Swirl
8 ounces cream cheese, softened. I mean it! Soft! Like a down pillow of cream cheese. Like cream cheese that thinks it's a marshmallow. That soft.
1/3 cup (66 grams) sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/3 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup (40 grams) chocolate chips
To-Do List:
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter an 8-inch square pan and line the bottom with parchment paper for neater brownies. Butter the parchment paper too.
Make brownie batter. Fill a tall-sided saucepan with at least three inches of water. Put butter and chocolate in a bowl and rest it on top. Mazel tov! You made a double boiler. It should look like this. Melt chocolate over low heat and whisk to combine. Once the mixture is smooth, remove it from the burner and let cool. Then mix in sugar, cocoa powder, salt, eggs, and vanilla until combined. (Don't rush the process. If the chocolate is too hot, the eggs will be scrambled in the batter, which is gross. Do not let that happen to these beautiful brownies.) Whisk in flour, then 1/2 cup of chocolate chips until just combined. Spread into prepared pan.
Make cheesecake swirl. Whisk cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla in a small bowl. I didn't need to use a hand mixer for this, just a little muscle. It took me about two minutes to get the batter smooth and whipped. Dollop mixture over chocolate batter, then swirl to spectacular marbled effect! There's no bad marble technique. But for superlative form, watch this tutorial. Sprinkle 1/4 cup chocolate chips over the cheesecake batter.
Bake brownies until edges are puffed and center is set, a process which can take between 35 and 45 minutes. Check at the 35-minute mark.
DistractiLinks
Sometimes incredible, niche articles make me jealous. Other times I just feel fortunate to be alive in a world that's this bananas. This piece falls does both. Feast upon this #content about the prevalence of the Instagram wall titled "Home Is Where the Photo Booth Is." Ugh, I love the internet.
Should we Disaster Bake this? I haven't even reached the bottom of the recipe but it's called Peanut Butter Mochi Cake, so. I mean. We have to, I think.
The true visionaries at Viktor & Rolf memed couture. The below is how I will respond to 60 percent of emails from now on.
Fork Over That Dough
Friend of the Disaster (Baker) Aminatou Sow pointed out on Twitter this week that endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological cancer and survival rates can depend on a person's race. Black women tend to be diagnosed later than white women, for example, which means more fatalities. Dr. Kemi Doll is one of the few people whose research is focused on these disparities. We can help! Scroll down to "Support for Black Women's Gynecological Health Program Fund" to make a donation.
Oh, and
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