Brownie Caramel Cheesecake

There's not really a backstory for this recipe.  Twenty or so years ago I thought I'd subscribe to one of those menu clubs.  You know them... Pay x amount of dollars and receive a dozen recipe cards to go in the bulky unwieldy large couldn't find a place for it  handy complimentary cheap plastic beautiful acrylic file box behind the confusing appropriate tabs.  You could have an entire year of expensive meals and non-kid-friendly desserts taking up a whole corner of the counter at your fingertips!  After three months I cancelled the subscription.  The plastic box became storage for Lego pirate weapons.  I did keep one recipe, though, and have made it for us through the years:  Brownie Caramel Cheesecake.

The pecan crust recipe comes from Brother #3.  I think he got it from Emeril but I wouldn't swear to it.  I use roasted pecans in everything but pecan pies.  Roasting brings out their nutty flavor and keeps them from getting soggy too quickly in cakes and salads.

Pecan Crust
2 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks butter
2 cups chopped pecans
1/2 teaspoon salt (strictly optional - I never use it)

Preheat oven to 450.  Mix flour, salt, and butter until consistency of cornmeal.  Add ground or finely chopped pecans.  Press mixture firmly in bottom and two inches up sides of a nine inch springform pan.  Bake for ten minutes until golden brown.

Now that's what the instructions say do.  You can certainly get cornmeal texture if the butter is cold.  I'd forgotten to leave the butter cold, having icing in mind this afternoon.  Does it make a difference if it's cold or not?  Not in this crust.

See?  All nice and mixed together and I didn't even get

the pastry knife thingy dirty!

I've discovered over the years to NOT start on the bottom

of the springform pan and then up the sides.  I start on the

sides, making them artfully not level all the way around.

And then I press the crust into the bottom.  This is a ten inch pan, 

by the way.  The recipe says nine inch but you'll regret using it.

And do yourself a favor and put the springform pan on or in 

something else.  Butter has a way of cooking out of the crust

to make a mess in the oven.

Let the crust cool completely.

Brownie Caramel Cheesecake:

Ingredients

1 14 ounce package caramels

5 ounces evaporated milk

2 cups crumbled unfrosted brownies

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 large eggs

8 ounces sour cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine caramels and milk in a small heavy saucepan; cook over low heat, stirring often until caramels melt.  Pour over crust.  Sprinkle crumbled brownies over caramel.  Beat cream cheese at medium speed of mixer until light and fluffy.  Gradually add sugar, mixing well.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended.  Stir in sour cream and vanilla.  Pour batter carefully over brownies.  Back at 350 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes or until cheesecake is almost set.  Turn off heat and let cheesecake remain in oven another hour, undisturbed.  remove from oven and let cool to room temperature on a wire rack.  Cover and let chill at least four hours.  remove sides from springform pan.  Garnish with chocolate curls and whipped cream, if desired.

That's the EXACT recipe.  Do I do it that way?  uhmmmmm No'm.  I don't.

I make 'from scratch' brownies.  Did I have to?  Nope.

In a bind for time, I've used mixes.  In a real bind for

time I've used Little Debbie brownies.

 Do you see a pot?  No.  Microwave these candies.  Two minutes on
high, stirring to break up the candies and then three minutes on medium.
The quick-melt caramel chips work great!

A whisk will make the melted caramel nice and smooth.

Let it cool while putting together the rest of the cheesecake.

 Whip the cream cheese until very fluffy.  It makes for a
very smooth texture.

 Pinky extended is the only way to gradually add brown sugar.

 If you're using farm eggs like I am, always (and I do mean always)
break them individually into a bowl or cup.  Forget a rotten apple.
A rotten egg really will spoil the whole recipe.

 MMMmmmmmm...  Look at that KitchenAid go!

 Stir in the sour cream?  I don't think so.  Turn the KitchenAid or
mixer down to the lowest setting.

 Putting the caramel on the bottom could possibly result
in baked caramel under the crust. You'll need
a prybar to get it out of the pan.  If there is the smallest
fissure in the crust, the caramel will go through it if put on the crust first.
Trust me.  I know these things...  Put the brownies on first.
This is THREE cups of brownies, by the way.
Two cups just doesn't cover.

Pour the batter on ever-so-gently.  It'll push brownies and melted

caramels around if rushed.

 Bake.

It'll take another thirty minutes beyond this point.  

I don't know why but it can't be rocket

science.

Everything else is pretty much like the recipe says.  As much as I love chocolate, I don't garnish this cheesecake.  It'd be more awesome if it were, I'm sure, but a chocoholic has to draw the line somewhere.

Y'all enjoy!

RaCK-It-Up-To-Goodness Filling (Raspberry, Chocolate, and Kahluah, that is...)

I know.  It's a cheesy name for a cake filling:  RaCK-it-up-to-Goodness??  I can't help it, though.  I've watched Waitress again so everything coming out of the kitchen is going to have a kitschy name until the novelty wears off or y'all tell me to stop - whichever comes first.

Why did I come up with another filling?  I've a lifelong friend who's baby is graduating high school.  He'd called last week wanting one of the chocolate overloads, or whatever might be good.  He's trusting in what he's had from this cakery before for something appropriate, meaning good enough to amaze half of Hattiesburg.   And then there's a local youngster graduating high school Friday, dear to my heart...one of the fellows in and out of here often enough he has a house key.  I know both of these young men love chocolate and the chocolate overload.

But I wanted something a littttttle more for them.

I thought and thought, "Okay, Mayree.  Chocolate cake.  How 'bout the J-Rob Special (thin chocolate layers of cake with melted raspberry jam on each layer, each layer covered with dark chocolate ganache, stacked, and covered with ganache again)?  No.  Need to save that specialness.  Uhmmmmm...Hmmm.... OH!  Raspberry cream filling?  It's a start but not quite right.  Raspberry chocolate cream filling?  Sounding better.  Raspberry, chocolate, and Kahlua??  Yes!"  See how I think in incomplete sentences?

So.  Without further ado, I present RaCK It Up To Goodness creamy cake filling (which will also make one fine pie filling).

Ingredients:
2 - Jello Chocolate Fudge instant puddings
2 - 8 ounce cream cheese
1 cup chocolate syrup
1 1/2 cup raspberry jam
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Kahlua
1/2 cup coffee
2 - 16 ounce tubs of whipped topping

This makes a very large bowl of filling but remember I've two large cakes to fill.  It can be easily cut in half.  This is one of the few places where the brand matters:  Polaner All Fruit is worth the extra money for intense flavor uncomplicated by pectin.

I didn't have milk but did have evaporated milk.  Y'all know to thin it with equal amounts of water, right?  I used one half cup evaporated milk and one half cup water.  Lots of folks don't like the taste of evaporated milk.  I grew up on it and don't have a problem substituting it for regular milk.

I nuked the raspberry jam to make it less lumpy and more readily mixable.

In a large bowl mix the cream cheese, chocolate syrup, and raspberry jam.

This is lots easier if the cream cheese is room temperature.  It smells absolutely wonderful at this point.

I didn't bother washing the measuring cups;  it's all going in the same filling.  Conserve water, it's not nearly as renewable a natural resource as folks say it is.  Now mix the cup of milk, Kahlua, coffee, and two packs of instant pudding.

 

Mix the pudding mixture into the cream cheese stuff

until everything is well incorporated.

And lastly, fold in the two tubs of whipped topping

until everything has been thoroughly blended.

Give it a taste.  You know you want to.

"Mayree?"  you ask, "Wouldn't this be better with real whipped cream?"  You betcha.  Profit margin notwithstanding, though, most folks in these parts won't know the difference -- and couldn't afford it if they did.

Like I said, this is one huge bowl of incredible filling.  Kind of like Jenna's chocolate strawberry oasis pie from the movie Waitress, the flavors are complex, presenting themselves one by one.  The immediate taste is chocolate, followed quickly by coffee with a punch (that'd be the Kahlua), rounding out with a definite raspberry finish.  It's a very rich and very light filling, all at the same time.  

I'm tickled with it.  Y'all find some occasion to try it out.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Chocolate Custard aka Custard's Last Stand...

I know I know - bad pun, right off the bat.  But it's custard and chocolate all at the same time:  the be all to end all of custards.  I'm a fan of custards, the smoothness and egginess and sweetness of them the right amount of everything for my palate.  Maybe I'll learn how to make a bunch of different custards one day - but not soon.  I'm content knowing how to make real banana pudding, a decent flan, and this:  chocolate custard. 

I've made this to use as a filling in a chocolate cake for an aspiring chocoholic.  Her mom's ordered the chocolate overload for the youngster's high school graduation party.  In a small community like this, you grow up knowing everybody or going to school with their younger or older siblings or, heaven forbid,  being related.  The graduate's mom, Brenda, was a year ahead of me in school.  We were in the band together for years and years.  Her dad was in Mama's kindergarten.  I know this family so when the call for a graduation cake came in, I wanted to kick it up a notch for them.  I'm using this chocolate custard as the means to an end.

Before I get on with the tutorial I need to explain 'bout the cakes made here.  They are NOT dried-out-mealy-textured sheet cakes.  Nope.  The closest to a sheet cake I make is a double layer.  Cakes have to have something in them to break up that butter/sugar/egg/flour texture likened to a bad pan of cornbread.  Mine are filled with something like Bavarian cream or lemon curd or fresh strawberry filling or seedless raspberry preserves.  It's the thing that makes them exceptional.  The fillings and home made icings make them of such good flavor and texture as to be memorable.  And I like memorable.

So annnnyways, Miss Abbie's cake is to be special.  A chocolate cake with chocolate custard filling and chocolate butter cream icing.  Here's what you need:

See that post it note to the right?  No recipe until just then! The margarine is missing!  Ohhh no!  Maybe it'll show up at the microwave.

Into the food processor, you know how I love the Cuisinart, put 2 cups sugar, 1/4 cup flour, and 1/2 cup cocoa powder.  Making it for myself, I like to use Hershey's special dark cocoa powder.  And don't give me any problems about that being too much sugar.  No such thing!  Give it a whirl and then add the eggs.

These are free range fertilized eggs from a local farm, Perlena's Peculiar Hens.  Okay.  You caught me...they're from Mama's incredibly tame chickens that speak Hen-ese to you.  Seriously!  Those chickens hear a soul coming through the shop, expecting feed or greenery and they'll sweet talk you right into a handful of corn.   She has the one Araucana chicken that lays the green egg.  Only the outside is green, see?

OOOoooo... seeing more of this home's good stuff today.  That little white bowl is very vintage;  unmarked Homer Laughlin I think.  I forget.  Home grown eggs are VERY yellow and should always be cracked into a separate bowl before being used.  Always.  The first time you drop a rotten egg into a hot skillet to make a fried egg sandwich you'll remember those words of wisdom and vow to never repeat the mistake.  The eggs go into the food processor.

Processing that results in a thick, gummy something-or-another so add the can of evaporated milk and blend again.   If you don't care for the taste of evaporated milk, use 12 ounces of sweet milk, by all means.  I know some souls don't cotton to it.  Money was tight in a family with five growing youngsters.  Sometimes if the sweet milk was gone before a trip into town could be arranged Mama would open a can of evaporated milk, add another can of water to it, and use it like regular milk.  I always kind of liked it on the frosted flakes on a Saturday morning, the only day of the week we had cereal.

Pour everything into the big 8 cup measuring cup.  Put another 2 cups of milk in the food processor and buzz it to get allllll the chocolate out.  Pour that in the measuring cup as well and nuke that chocolate deliciousness for 10 minutes on high.

Look!  There's the margarine and vanilla.  Lots of cooks say you can't tell the difference between real vanilla and imitation.  I dunno.  I'm not going to use anything but Mexican vanilla where flavor is uber important.  As Forrest Gump says, "And that's all I've got to say about that."  Yikes!  You can almost see me in the reflection on the microwave.

Go clean your kitchen while you wait.

oh SNAP!  Now you know my very inexpensive secret to degreasing all the greasy mixing bowls from the icings.  Octagon soap.  It's in the soap dish up there on the left.  Wet the dishcloth and get it very very soapy with that and you won't have any problem getting the dishes clean the first time.  I don't.

After ten minutes, take the custard out of the microwave, whisk in the 4 tablespoons of butter or margarine and a big teaspoon of vanilla.  Return to microwave for another four or five minutes.  Whisk it all again until it's a smooth texture like this:

The whisk is standing up by itself.  See that clementine?  A good cup of custard will come out to be used Monday in a different cake.  I'll grate a bit of clementine rind into it as a teaser, changing the entire dynamic of flavor!

Press the obligatory wrap against the surface to keep nastiness from scumming the deliciousness and let cool.

You absolutely can put the un-nuked custard in an unbaked pie shell and bake as a pie.  Add an another egg if you do.

The ingredients for Chocolate Custard are:

2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 large can evaporated milk
2 cups milk
4 tablespoons margarine or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Y'all saw it put together up there -- now go and do and make me proud!