Goat Cheese Brownies

I have a lot of delicious chèvre from Mattawan Artisan Creamery right now, so I get to find lots of goat cheese recipes to try. (I know, such a chore.) My children are content to just eat it by the spoonful at every meal (“Can we eat goat cheese for lunch again, Mommy? Please?”) and it certainly is delicious that way, but I feel like I would be doing my family a disservice if I didn’t at least try a few recipes I don’t normally make. We have made raspberry chèvre dip for crackers and pretzels, chèvre quesadillas, and toasted bread with chèvre. What else should we try?

And so I stumbled up on these brownies at Redwood Hill Farm. Goat cheese + brownies is a match made in heaven! I cannot stop raving about how delicious these are (and apparently I can’t stop eating them, either; they’re gone) and you won’t be able to stop thinking about this recipe until you try it. So go ahead and get your hands on at least 8 oz. of locally produced chèvre (hurry before it’s too cold and many creameries stop making it for the winter!) and make this. It’s unbelievably good. And rich! Make it and savor it, because it’s not an every day food. Definitely special.

This delicious, fudgy and dense brownie recipe comes to us from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, authors of Goat, Meat-Milk-Cheese.  These treats are a cross between cheesecake and brownies.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 oz. (115 grams) chopped bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
• 4 oz. (115 grams) chopped unsweetened chocolate (sometimes called “baking chocolate”)
• 10 Tbsp. (150 grams) unsalted butter, cut-up
• 8 oz. (225 grams) plain chèvre
• 1 1/2 cups (350 grams) granulated white sugar
• 4 large eggs (room temperature)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) milk

Instructions

1. Begin by positioning the rack in the lower third of the oven and preheating the oven to 350F/175C. Butter and flour a 9 x 13-inch (23 x 33-cm) baking pan.
2. Whisk  flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
3. Place chopped bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate and chopped unsweetened chocolate in the top half of a double boiler set over a pan with about an inch of slowly simmering water. If you do not have a double boiler, set a heat-safe mixing bowl over a medium saucepan with a similar amount of slowly simmering water. Stir until half the chocolate has melted, then remove the top half of the double boiler or the bowl from the pan and stir off the heat until all the chocolate has melted. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, beat unsalted butter, Redwood Hill Farm plain chèvre, and granulated white sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy and thick, about 6 minutes.
5. Beat in the melted chocolate until smooth, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the inside of the bowl and beat in 4 large eggs, one at a time, adding the next after the one before has been thoroughly incorporated. Beat in 1 additional large egg yolk and vanilla extract.
6. Turn off the beaters, add half the flour mixture, and beat it in at very low speed. When creamy, beat in milk. Finally, beat in the remaining flour mixture just until there are no white streaks or rifts in the batter. One warning: it’s a stiff batter. Pour and spread the batter into the prepared pan.
7. Bake until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. The middle may be soft but it will set up.
8. Cool the pan on a wire rack for an hour, then cut the brownies into 24 pieces. Carefully remove them from the pan. You can store them between sheets of wax paper in a sealed container on the counter for up to 3 days–or in the freezer for months.

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