Foodies,
For a photo club get together followed by wine and dinner, I decided to contribute a decadent dessert while others contributed useless healthy stuff like salad, grilled chicken brochettes and flank steak. Pfft. Okay, there was also an awesome upside down rhubarb berry cake. But the fresh local fruit used made it somewhat healthy.
I went for complete decadence with a triple layer chocolate brownie cheesecake pecan pie. This was actually a surprisingly tricky dessert to make because dumping all the batters for each individual layer at the same time in the baking pan was courting a liquid disaster but waiting too long between cooking times of each layer threatened to resulting in burning the end result somewhere if it had cooked too long. So careful planning was required.
TRIPLE LAYER BROWNIE CHEESECAKE PECAN PIE
First layer – Chocolate Brownie
1/2 cup butter
2 squares bittersweet chocolate
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp artisanal vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
I melted the butter in a saucepan over low heat and then added the chocolate and cocoa and continued until both had melted and combined and turned off the eat. I then added the vanilla and sugar and stirred until smooth, adding in the two eggs last.
Once combined, I then folded in the flour gently until I had a completely incorporated batter. This went into a square Pyrex pan and into the oven at 350 degrees in the second highest rack position for five minutes first.
Second layer – Cheesecake
1 standard 8 oz pkg cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp artisanal vanilla
1 Tbsp buttermilk
1 egg
The second layer was extremely easy to make. In a stand mixer, I beat the cream cheese and sugar until roughly incorporated and added in the vanilla, buttermilk and egg and continued until it resembled a batter. I did not bother to soften the cheese first, simply throwing it in the mixer and beating right away. The result is that the batter looks quite rough and lumpy with plenty of chunks of cream cheese throughout but don’t worry, these will smooth out during the baking process.
By this time, the brownie layer had just begun to set and I took the pan out of the oven and gently poured the cheesecake layer on top and smoothed it out with a spatula to cover the edges and back in the oven it went for 10 more minutes.
Third layer – Pecan Pie
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tsp artisanal vanilla
1 Tbsp bourbon
1 cup pecans
Back to the saucepan. I melted the butter over medium-low heat and added in the brown sugar and stirred gently until melted and incorporated with each other. I then turned off the heat and added in the vanilla and bourbon and stirred. Then came the two eggs last. I stirred again and then folded in the pecans.
Out came the pan and this mixture went on top. Because it is the most liquid, it initially looked like it was blending into the cheesecake layer and threatened to overflow the top of the pan, but it in fact was just displacing the cheesecake layer a bit and everything turned out okay in the end. Back into the oven for a total time of 60 minutes altogether.
As you can see, the finished dessert has a pretty uniform appearance in the pan with a pecan pie layer covering the entire top except for a couple of spots where the cheescake layer got displaced. I decided not to try and “fix” it for fear of ruining the layers.
The cutaway slice reveals the layers to be even more distinct from each other. Tastewise this is amazing with the brownie base providing some dark chocolate cookie flavors which are then lightened by the vanilla cheescake and then the gooey pecan, maple and bourbon flavors come in on the finish with some satisfying crunch from the pecans. A successful effort in decadence.
