Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake

This cheesecake is magical.

In one bite, it can do so many different things.

It will change your life.
It will change your perspective of everything.
It will make you question reality.
How can something taste so good?



It will impress your drama-queen manager who is always PMSing. Even if he's a guy.
It will make your boyfriend stop playing Fable 3 and Halo: Reach for more than just a potty break.
It will cause odd and excessive groaning/moaning noises from everyone that eats it.
It will make anyone who hates you, love you. Forever.
It pretty much brings all the boys to the yard. And not for milkshakes.

This cheesecake...is just far too much.

Smooth. Creamy. Sweet enough to balance out the brownies. Decadent enough to satisfy with one serving, but addicting enough to go back for more sometime around midnight when no one can see you lick it off the fork. Oh, and a chocolate wafer crust to top it all off.

Yeah. You can't really get better than this without enticing a heart attack on yourself.

The best part about this cheesecake is that it's easy. Sure, it includes some patience. But it's so very, very worth it. If you've got a big event coming up, or maybe just want to do something nice for someone... this is the way to go. Plus, it looks so impressive when you cut into it. The brownie chunks make such a beautiful pattern, it will make anyone "ooh" and "aah" all over again when they take a slice. Please, make this cheesecake. You won't regret it.

Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake
(recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

Brownie Ingredients:

1 family-size box of brownie mix, baked as directed
or
1 9x13 pan of your favorite brownie recipe

Crust:
(measurements to double crust in parenthesis)

1 1/2 cups or 5 ounces (3 cups or 10 ounces to double) finely ground cookies such as chocolate wafers. Or Chocolate Teddy Grahams.
5 tablespoons (10 tablespoons to double) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup (2/3 cup to double) sugar
1/8 (1/4 teaspoon to double) teaspoon salt

Cheesecake

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups brownie cubes

Chocolate Ganache:
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken up, or 1/2 cup chocolate morsels
2 ounces butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon confectioners sugar

Directions:

1. Bake brownies as directed on the box or bake your own recipe. Once brownies are cool, store in the refrigerator or freezer before you cut them for cleaner cuts.

2. Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of a buttered 24-centimeter springform pan. Fill right away or chill up to 2 hours.

3. Make crumb crust as directed above for 24-centimeter cheesecake. Preheat oven to 350°F.

4. Make filling and bake cake: Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla and sugar, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.

5. Fold brownie cubes in very gently and pour mixture into prepared pan. Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan. Pour filling into crust and bake in baking pan (to catch drips) in middle of oven 45 minutes, or until cake is set 3 inches from edge but center is still slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken.

When completely cool, top glaze.

6. To make the ganache, grind the chocolate into powder in the food processor, scald the butter and cream in a saucepan (or in a Pyrex cup in the microwave). With the machine running, pour the hot cream/butter mixture slowly through the feed tube onto the chocolate. Blend until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down sides once or twice.

7. Add the extract and sugar and process until smooth. Spread over cheesecake while ganache is still warm. Chill until ready to serve.

Accidental Oatmeal Cookie Brownie Bars.

Don't you love it when things barely work themselves out at the last moment?

I have this thing. This problem, you see. No matter what i'm baking, or how many times i've foolproofed a recipe, I always, ALWAYS, mess something up. Whether it be in missing the vanilla... putting too much flour... oh, or that time where I forgot to melt chocolate (FOR BROWNIES) because I was too busy thinking about what shoes to wear. Yeah. Something ALWAYS happens.

This time was no different. I went out on a mission to make Eating Well's brownies. Their suppose to be 86cal a pop and I really haven't made brownies for awhile, so I thought hey -- why not! They'll be brownies but a little more healthier. And chocolate is a must in my life. Must must must.

Well turns out that something, somewhere in that recipe went horrrrrrribly wrong and somehow my batter came out so entirely thin that instead of giving me brownies when I poured them into the pan, they gave me more of a brownie BASE than anything else. It was soooo thin. I refused to believe that I was gonna get brownies out of batter that thin. I almost thought I had a poured it into too big of a pan but nope -- 8x8 is what it called for. So 8x8 is what I used.

I'm not really sure how I got the result that I did, but thankfully, I had a back-up plan.

The quaker-oatmeal-cookie to the resue plan.

I just happened to have half a batch of oatmeal cookies in the freezer in case of emergencies... like cookie cravings. But! I got an idea and decided to try it. Anything to save these brownies. I really didn't want to waste all that chocolate, and ingredients. And chocolate.

So I took out my oatmeal cookie dough that USED to have chocolate chips in the batter (<_< Wonder who ate those...), went ahead and crumbled (yes, crumbled) the dough to form little clusters, or balls, and sprinkled them over the brownies until they were entirely covered. Then I popped them into the oven and prayed for the best.



Result?
Really good freakin' oatmeal cookie brownies.

The base was perfect for the cookie dough and everything baked evenly. Total "YES *FISTPUMP* moment for me the second they came out of the oven and cooled. The top got a littttttttle overbaked, but overall it was a very yummy, chewy brownie cookie bar...thing.

So if you happen to have cookie dough sitting in your fridge, but you wanna make something a little bit different -- go for the brownie base. Or, you can just TRY and make the original recipe work... But what fun is baking when something doesn't go right? ;)

(P.S.: These are best dunked in milk. With a bigger glass full than that one.)

Oatmeal Cookie Brownie Bars
Combination of Eating Well and Quakers recipes

Brownie Base Ingredients:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, American-style or Dutch-process
3 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (50-72% cacao), coarsely chopped
2 1/2 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chopped into mini chip-size pieces, divided
1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup, blended with 3 tablespoons lukewarm water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/3 cup chopped toasted walnuts, optional

Oatmeal Cookie Ingredients:
(Note: you will only need to use half of the cookie dough batter for this)

1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 cups Quaker Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup raisins, chocolate chips, walnuts (optional)

Directions:
1. Make your oatmeal cookie dough first! since we have to let the dough sit in the freezer for a bit.

2. To make oatmeal cookie layer, In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

3. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy.

4. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins (if using); mix well.

5. Divide dough into two large balls. Wrap in non-stick foil or food wrap, and stick in freezer. Let sit while you make the brownie layer.

6. To make the brownie layer, first, position your oven wrack in the middle and preheat your oven to 350. Line a 8x8 baking pan with foil, letting the foil hang off the edges (this way you can just lift them out of the pan without cutting them out and ruining them) remember to spray your foil with non-stick cooking spray like PAM so it doesn't stick.

7. Sift (or whisk) flour, confectioners’ sugar and cocoa together into a small bowl.

8. Combine the 3 ounces coarsely chopped chocolate and oil in a large, microwave safe bowl. Melt chocolate in microwave, stirring every 20 seconds or so, until chocolate is smooth and velvetty. DO NOT MICROWAVE FOR TOO LONG. Just until melted.

8. Remove from the microwave and stir in granulated sugar, corn syrup mixture, vanilla and salt until the sugar dissolves.

9. Vigorously stir in egg until smoothly incorporated.

10. Gently stir in the dry ingredients. Fold in the walnuts (if using) and the remaining 2 1/2 ounces chopped chocolate just until well blended.

11. Turn out the batter into the pan, spreading evenly.

12. Get out one frozen portion of your cookie dough, unwrap, and start using your fingers to form small portions of the cookie dough into teaspoon/tablespoon sized little balls. Sprinkle evenly over brownie layer until you can only see a few bits of brownie through the dough.

13. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool for an hour or so. To remove from pan, take both side of foil and lift up out of the pan, and rest on a cooling wrack until completely cooled and ready to cut.

14. Cut brownies into small bars. Should yield about 20 bars from the pan.