The KBAL Brownie Initiative

In theory, this brownie sounds kinds yummy. In practice, it was a pain. FOUR separate bowls were required for this recipe, which sent the PITA score off the chart! It didn't help that I was tired, cranky and had a dirty kitchen, so finding 4 bowls was a challenge.

Bowl #1 had butter and chocolate melted in it. I had some help on this from Emily, who has become the master of the microwave. She even stirred it extra smooth, but not before somehow managing to end up with chocolate eye shadow and a brown bindi. Don't ask me how she did it, but she tried to blame me!

Bowl #2 had butter, cream cheese, eggs, sugar, flour and vanilla for the cream cheese topping. This went together pretty easy and I used the hand mixer instead of the Kitchenaid.

Bowl #3 had the brownie base. Eggs, sugar, the cooled chocolate, flour, baking powder, vanilla, chopped pecans and almond extract (ugh!). I really dislike almond extract. It always make me think of eating maraschino cherries.

Bowl #4 had 2 cups of the brownie mixture reserved in it to create the 'swirl' part of the recipe.

The contents of Bowl #3 went into the bottom of the pan, which had to be greased and floured. The contents of Bowl #2 were spread on top and then the contents of Bowl #4 were dropped on top. Since the brownie mix was heavy and the cheese mixture was almost liquid, the swirling part didn't go too well. The blobs of brownie floated around intact through the cheese mix, creating a less than desired effect. After 5 minutes of attempted swirling in different direction, I called it done.

The pan was popped into the oven for 50 minutes, 10 longer than called for. Luckily, there was no frosting, so it went on top of the fridge to cool, while I cleaned up the horrific mess.