Black & White Cheesecake Bars

On Tuesday night we hung out with Rebekah and Sean, good friends who live around the corner, but who we don't see nearly enough of. Bekah and Sean made dinner, and requested that we contribute dessert, which was perfectly fine, as I had a couple of sweets recipes still needing to be done. Only when I got there did I discover that they specifically requested dessert because they view me as a 'baker,' which they proclaim they are not. They had a yen for a dessert, one of mine specifically.

This to me is hilarious because outside of this Recipe Book, I don't often bother with desserts, let alone ones that I bake. But I guess as a course of things, I am now viewed both as someone who is known to bake, and known to do it well? I guess? This makes no sense to me, but there you have it. I think Sean & Bekah just have a very skewed opinion of me. Or else I have a skewed opinion of me. Or both.

In any event, I have a Martha Stewart recipe for Black & White Cheesecake Bars, via Cathy. This sounded just delightful to me; I mean, basically, you say 'cheesecake' and I'm there.

It's basically cheesecake brownies, which I've never made and always wanted to know how to make. They were pretty simple, although there's a lot of bake this for a half hour, then come back and do more to it, so you have to have a bit of time to make it, even if that time involves lots of breaks. But they come out quite pretty, and I finally learned the secret of using wax paper to line the baking dish so you can get them out easily and without breakage. I may become a devotee to this method.

And then you just LIFT IT OUT! No breaking or scraping or horror! Yes!

Cathy noted that she downloaded the recipe from the Martha Stewart website, where she noticed that lots of users were complaining about all the butter in the recipe. I second that emotion. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 sticks of butter, which, IMO means that the finished brownies cross over the line from luxuriously buttery to greasy. Then again, they were moist as all get-out, so there's that.

Cathy also points out that they are a little light on the cheesecake for her tastes, and I completely agree. These are more brownies with a hint of cheesecake than vice versa, and as a cheesecake fan, that's just kind of a tease. Still, brownies are brownies, and everyone at dinner liked them and had seconds, including myself. It's just that in the future I might start paring down the butter so we can just hit the deliciously moist mark without any hint of hmmm, is this a little gross?

Fancy plated photo courtesy of Sean

Martha Stewart's Overly-Buttery, But Still Quite Tasty Black & White Cheesecake Bars aka Brownies

2 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (aka Hershey's powder. Is that Dutch process? Do I know? Do I care? It's cocoa powder, that should be good enough, Martha, you fancy bitch.)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (Kosher!)
10 oz (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (but should still be cool)*
2 cups granulated sugar (mostly white, with some raw mixed in for good measure)
3 large eggs (0r whatever size I have. I mean, really.)
2 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Coat a 9x13" baking dish (i.e., glass casserole dish, not a metal baking pan) with cooking spray. Realize you do not have a glass baking dish, but you do have a ceramic lasagna type dish, so that is going to have to do. Realize you only have canola oil spray, and that is going to have to do, too.

Line dish with parchment, leaving a 2" overhang on both long sides, then spray (or butter with the leftover butter wax paper, says Cathy) parchment. Realize you do not have parchment. Decide that wax paper will have to do. Also fail to really understand the instructions in the parens back there, but decide it just means you can butter the wax paper, so do that.

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Notice the smell of the cocoa powder has summoned the dog into the kitchen like a siren song, as he has unfortunately developed a taste for it and now has the habit of ransacking all guest's bags in hopes (and frequent actuality) of finding some, thus sending me to the vet/poison control hotline more times than I wish. Try not to drop too much on the floor for this very reason.

Cream butter and granulated sugar with a mixer until smooth. Add 2 eggs and 2 tsps vanilla, and beat until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl. Is that last part really necessary? Am I that much of a goon? Well, maybe.

Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture. Increase speed to medium; beat until incorporated. So far, so good.

Reserve 1 cup of dough; cover and refrigerate. Check. Press remaining dough into bottom of prepared dish.** Fail to understand why this part is supposed to be so difficult; you're just spreading the stuff onto the wax. Is it supposed to be compressed? Is it supposed to be perfectly smooth? I have no clue. It was fine.

Also, ignore the part about how the butter should be cool. That is just not going to happen. You are going to microwave it soft and dump it right in like always.

Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Put the dish in the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees. (Martha wants you to just put it in there after preheating, but Cathy the scientist is nervous about putting a cold glass dish into a hot oven, so she puts it in while it's preheating. I went with Cathy's method). Bake until base is set and edges are puffed, about 25 minutes. Let cool in dish on a wire rack, or just on the stove top because why do you need the wire rack if it's in the dish?

Mix cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, and remaining egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla in a medium bowl. I love how you need to know the size of the bowl. It's whatever bowl I want, damn it.

Spread over cooled base, or really, rather warm base. I mean, I'm not going to sit around and let it cool forever. Crumble (more break up) reserved dough on top. Cathy says she finds the cup quite a lot of dough, and they all enjoy eating bits of it raw. I was by myself and had already licked the beaters, so it all went in.

Bake until filling is set, 25-30 minutes. Let cool in dish on wire rack (again with the dish on the wire rack crap), then lift out using overhang. This is magnificent. Why have I not done this before?

Cut into 24 squares. Or fail to want to do the math for that and just cut it into as many squares as looks normal. Squares will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to three days. Really? That's all? I'm going to test that.

*I think this amount of butter is insane, and in future would start trying to reduce it so the end result wasn't such a grease-fest

**Cathy note: Do this as best you can -- it's easier if your butter is still a little cool. I use the leftover butter wax paper instead of my bare hands. If it's being a pain, then put it in the fridge and then fix it when it comes out after 30 minutes--it's much more manageable.