The Baking Bible: Woody's Black and White Brownies
When you need a fancy pants dessert for a dinner party or a potluck or just for a lazy Sunday, this brownie would fill the bill. Woody took his mother's traditional bourbon brownies and swapped in Rose components to make something special.
The brownie component is Roses' Barcelona Brownies, which first appeared on her blog and then in Heavenly Cakes. Here's my take from back in the bake through. I made the classic pecan version which I enjoyed despite not liking nuts in my brownie. Mark doesn't like nuts in his brownie either, so I decided to try the cherry variation for this recipe. Essentially, you take a bunch of dried sour cherries, chop them up, then soak them in kirsch or cherry heering. I decided, since we were going to use bourbon in the ganache topper, to soak the cherries in bourbon. Bourbon sour cherries are delightful, by the way, but now I am wondering what it would have been like to use kirsch in the ganache instead of bourbon, to highlight the cherry-ness of the brownies.
The white frosting is the White Chocolate Buttercream, also from Heavenly Cakes where it adorned Woody's Lemon Luxury Lemon Cake. As an added bonus for me, if you go check out my post about the cake you can get all the step-by-step instructions on how to make the buttercream. That buttercream got a dollop of lemon curd which this buttercream, obviously, doesn't. I will say that the buttercream, although being wonderfully light and silky, is more work than I think this brownie deserves. The ganache layer on top sort of drowns out the delicate buttercream, and the lightness of the buttercream doesn't match the dense fudginess of the brownie, in my opinion. This buttercream needs a genoise or a very finely textured butter cake.
The ganache has a generous dollop of bourbon, which is nice and not to much. I used the leftover liquid from soaking the cherries and topped it off with straight bourbon. So there's a little light cherry flavor to the ganache. I used all the ganache to glaze the top, and I wish I only used enough to just cover the buttercream. For my tastes, there's just too much ganache. Alas.
All in all, a yummy brownie. Next time I'll try a sturdier buttercream and less ganache. I really like the brownie with the boozy cherries. Mark really likes the elevated components that make this better than a regular black and white brownie. I like that, too. Fancy pantsy brownies for all!
The brownie component is Roses' Barcelona Brownies, which first appeared on her blog and then in Heavenly Cakes. Here's my take from back in the bake through. I made the classic pecan version which I enjoyed despite not liking nuts in my brownie. Mark doesn't like nuts in his brownie either, so I decided to try the cherry variation for this recipe. Essentially, you take a bunch of dried sour cherries, chop them up, then soak them in kirsch or cherry heering. I decided, since we were going to use bourbon in the ganache topper, to soak the cherries in bourbon. Bourbon sour cherries are delightful, by the way, but now I am wondering what it would have been like to use kirsch in the ganache instead of bourbon, to highlight the cherry-ness of the brownies.
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| boozy cherries. this should be a pantry staple. |
The white frosting is the White Chocolate Buttercream, also from Heavenly Cakes where it adorned Woody's Lemon Luxury Lemon Cake. As an added bonus for me, if you go check out my post about the cake you can get all the step-by-step instructions on how to make the buttercream. That buttercream got a dollop of lemon curd which this buttercream, obviously, doesn't. I will say that the buttercream, although being wonderfully light and silky, is more work than I think this brownie deserves. The ganache layer on top sort of drowns out the delicate buttercream, and the lightness of the buttercream doesn't match the dense fudginess of the brownie, in my opinion. This buttercream needs a genoise or a very finely textured butter cake.
The ganache has a generous dollop of bourbon, which is nice and not to much. I used the leftover liquid from soaking the cherries and topped it off with straight bourbon. So there's a little light cherry flavor to the ganache. I used all the ganache to glaze the top, and I wish I only used enough to just cover the buttercream. For my tastes, there's just too much ganache. Alas.
All in all, a yummy brownie. Next time I'll try a sturdier buttercream and less ganache. I really like the brownie with the boozy cherries. Mark really likes the elevated components that make this better than a regular black and white brownie. I like that, too. Fancy pantsy brownies for all!
Looks awesome and super fancy indeed!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you posted early! Inspiring! The cherries sound delicious, almost like a Black Forrest Brownie. I saw brownies and thought, oh goody-a quick and easy recipe. My daughter commented "Careful mom, it's Rose after all." I then read the recipe and moaned. So today it's the brownie base, tomorrow the rest. Really off my baking game this week.
ReplyDeleteOh they look wonderful and sound delicious with the addition of sour cherries :) Your right the silkiness of the butter cream would be lovely paired with the lightness of a genoise.
ReplyDeleteOooh, cherries! Yumm!! I like your idea - we should rename these fancy pants brownies
ReplyDeleteBooze soaked cherries is an inspirational touch and very Christmassy if you're going along with Woody's mother. Great fudgy looking photo of the brownie - yum!
ReplyDeleteBurbon soaked cherries in this recipe is a fantastic idea. I wish I had thought of it! Your pictures were great and I really liked when you said that the white chocolate is more work than the brownie deserves. So true. Nice post.
ReplyDelete