Brownie cheesecake

 

This is recipe I learned from a Hungarian (actually Transylvanian) girl living in Paris about 20 years ago, and was a favorite back in Finland. I (thought) lost the recipe. Looked for it desperately among my emails for some time with various search words, nothing. I was convinced it fell victime to one of my cleanups. *sigh*

Needless to say, I was over the moon when I found it in a recipe book scribbled along the "Jälkiruoka", aka desserts, and could not hold back, had to bake it the next day..

It is still a hit!!

Ingredients

For the cheesecake

250 g ricotta (go ahead and replace it with farmers cheese it you don't have, or want to buy ricotta, just swap out a dollop of cheese with heavy cream, as farmers cheese is a bit heavier than ricotta)

150 g farmers cheese (2/3 cups)

35g powdered sugar (4 tbsp, I added 50 g as I measured 4 heap full tbsp of sugar, but it was OK)

vanilla essence

2 eggs

120 g heavy whipping cream (4 fluid ounce)

15 g flour (2 tbsp)

For the brownie

200 g butter

300 g chocolate (Girardelli  chocolate chips, or some high quality baking chocolate that melts smoothly will work)

6 eggs

200 g powdered sugar

vanilla essence

150 g flour (20 tbsp or 1 1/4 cups)

large pinch of salt

 

Preheat the oven to 360F or 180C and line a 9" x 13" tray that's about 2" deep with parchment paper. In centimeters that would be a 20cm x 30cm x 6cm high baking tray.

Prepare the brownie batter

In a double boiler, or bain marie, or best, simply in a bowl over simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter, mixing until smooth and shiny. Let it cool slightly.

In a separate bowl beat lightly beat together the eggs with the sugar and vanilla. If you beat the eggs too much it becomes more spongy, which is usually not very well received among brownie lovers, but we like it, so I just beat it as I please at the moment :D. Add the melted butter and chocolate, combine folding slowly, and add the flour ans salt. Don't overmix the batter, it is really not necessary.

Pour the batter into your prepared baking pan.

 Prepare the cheesecake

In a clean bowl beat lightly beat together the cream with the sugar, (don't whip it fully into a regular whipping cream consistency), mix in the cream and vanilla, and finally the eggs. Fold in the flour.

Transfer the batter into a piping bag, push the hole of the piping bag into the brownie batter, and disperse the cheesecake batter in random swirls into the brownie (DO NOT COMBINE THE TWO BATTERS TOGETHER!!) 

It is best if the cheesecake batter is all under the brownie batter, but as you can see I was not really paying attention this time, and the cheesecake shows on the top.. Hey, it is just as good, but if you are more careful you'll have a crunchy brownie top thorough the cake, rather just in spots.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Let it cool completely, at least 2 to 4 hours.

I like it cut into perfect 5cm x 5 cm (1.5" x 1.5" squares) or smaller (like 4x4).

 Bon appétit!