In all honesty, peeps, I'm not a fan of 'marbled' stuff. It seems too ambiguous and hypocritical to me, ya know? Either be chocolate or vanilla but don't try to be both. Be honest! Be pure!
But when a great minded baker like Smitten Kitchen posts it on her blog and says it's bakable I humbly abide. I must. 'Tis the duty of a novice baker: Listen. Follow. Adjust.
I had to commit the sacrilege of not going by the recipe exactly. (Yeah, I'm very guilty of this in many of the bakings I attempt.) But, I have an excuse. I have this thing where I buy ingredients for a certain recipe and then am left with the remaining ingredients with fast approaching expiry dates. So to avoid the cycle of being left with left-over ingredients, again, I had to go ahead with what I had, hence the inevitable deviation from the original recipe.
Anyhoot, I was trying to find a recipe that would use up both the chocolate and the cream cheese that was about to expire - trying to kill two ingredients with one recipe. I had cupcakes in mind. Also cookies. Then I came across Smitten Kitchen's newly posted recipe. And I was done for.
The changes I made to the recipe are:
1. I used only 5 oz of cream cheese instead of 8 oz (because that's what I had)
2. I used a heck of a lot more chocolate then called for. I used ALL 230g of my Whittaker's Dark Mocha Chocolate. (I bought these to snack on, but the espresso in them were a bit too strong for snacking)
The result.
Whatcha think? Hm???
Totally awesome.
I absolutely loved the mocha chocolate in this. Not only that, the brownie itself was so moist and lovely. I would use less chocolate for the sprinkling on top next time (yes, less is more!) but the brownie was yumdy dum!! I was gonna take this to church tomorrow but......I'm thinking may be not. heee heeee.
Here's the recipe from Smitten Kitchen.
May I interest you in the story of the below photographed knife?
'Twas my mother's and we've had it for about 10 years now.
My mother grew up in the sixties in Korea (post-war)
as a pastor's kid. So. She doesn't know how to 'discard' anything.
I still shock her with the things I throw out.
I sometimes tell her about what I'm trashing just to get a kick out of it.
Is this mean? :)
But really. I will never throw away this one (the knife, I mean).
It still works beautifully thanks to mom's diligent sharpening.
I sometimes would use a glad wrap again
or clean the take-out box to use as tupperware.
I never unconsciously FIND myself doing this.
I only do it when I'm thinking of my mother.
The below Mocha Chocolate will definitely be making
many more appearances in my baking.
The before....
...and after.
...I really need to work on my food presentation...
...true beauty lies within...but beautiful food still gets more attention....
