Tuesdays with Dorie (on Sunday night?) or you had me at chocolate/coffee/cheesecake

My whole reason for starting this blog is I wanted to be a part of "Tuesdays with Dorie", a group that bakes a different recipe a week from the book "Baking" by Dorie Greenspan. I had this book before I ever knew about the group and each week I would check the blog to see what they baked. Not having a blog kept me from joining the group...until now.

I haven't officially been accepted, but, I have gone ahead and baked the recipe for this Tuesday - Espresso Cheesecake Brownies. I am hoping that the fact that I baked on Sunday instead of Tuesday won't disqualify me. :) I will be cleaning houses on Tuesday (to pay the bills) and had the free time today to bake, so I did.

The recipe was pretty easy to pull together. I already had everything I needed on hand. I did use bittersweet chips rather than chopped bars for the melted chocolate part, but I don't think it affected the outcome. I whipped up the brownies in a 4 cup glass measuring cup. The batter seemed a bit thicker than I think it should have been, because when it came time to swirl it with the cheesecake batter it didn't swirl so much as just move around in the batter. The cheesecake batter itself smelled wonderful with the addition of the espresso and was a lovely "coffee with cream" color. I baked mine for the minimum time of 30 minutes.

They turned out fabulous! Delicious! I was already sold by the fact that the recipe called for espresso and chocolate, two of my favorite flavors. Not to mention cheesecake. I mean, how can you go wrong.  But I wasn't prepared for just how good the final result would be.

The tangy sour cream topping is the first thing you taste, it's tanginess cut by the addition of the confectioners sugar. Then, the espresso flavor floods your mouth, blending with the sour cream, and finally the chocolate of the brownies melds with the other flavors and it all comes together like a well orchestrated dance. My hubby said "it was a party in his mouth". They were smooth, creamy, rich, and considering how easy overall they were to pull together, I can see these being made quite often in my house. I wonder what the other bakers thought...