Cheesecake Brownies
This year, I made a triple-batch of vegan cheesecake brownies for the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. They turned out okay - the recipe is from Bryanna Clark Grogan's Vegan Feast newsletter (Dec '03 - Jan-'04) , so I'm not at liberty to post it. Sadly, she's no longer publishing her newsletter but back issues are still for sale. And who can ever have too many tried-and-true vegan recipes?
Anyway, I said they were "okay" - here's what I learned and what I did differently from the recipe.
I used Silk Coffee Creamer for the soy milk in the cheese filling part.
I omitted the orange zest.
Because the coffee creamer was so much sweeter than soymilk, I attempted to cut back on the sugar in the cheese part, only to add some powdered sugar because the filling wasn't sweet enough.
I used parchment, liberally. There is no way I could have de-panned them, had I not.
A triple batch is the perfect amount for two 9*13 and one 8*8 pans. I swear, pan sizes in Canada are screwy - don't think I've ever seen a 9*11 pan.
I thought I had way too much cheese and I couldn't bring myself to use it all. This was a mistake. Note to future self, trying this recipe again - use it all. The brownie part will rise up through some and the cheese filling will set. I repeat, USE IT ALL!
Another note to future self - maybe it would be wise to invest in one of those special "brownie pans" before trying a gooey brownie recipe again. This recipe, like many others, suffered from the "perfect on the outside, 'raw' in the middle" syndrome. I baked it longer than called for. I ended up saving out the middles (they were too gooey to send off for the bake sale) - these middles received a second baking in our new convection microwave and I feel a little guilty to confess - I think they were the best of the bunch!
