Deadly Brownies: Bacon, brown sugar, peanut butter cheesecake, and more!

There are 3 food groups in this photo. Hello, breakfast!

I have this totally silly food story that you just gotta hear, if you're interested in how people's favourite recipes come to be just that.

I used to think that my mom was nuts. Like, an obsessive person, because she would go through these phases of making a recipe over and over.

It turns out that I have the same type of crazy: A flair for baking. Maybe it's hereditary.

In my late teens years, I strong-armed my sister into buying me this hilarious 50's-ish cookbook, complete with re-vamped vintage artwork, cheesy photos, and a ridiculous, feminist-un-approved-title. Thank you, Mia. I luuuuuv yoooou.

I was after the classic recipes for pillowy buttermilk biscuits, melty chocolate chip cookies, rich pot pies, crunchy Southern-fried chicken, and hearty cornbread. The added laughter value of cheesy basics like tuna noodle casseroles, banana splits, club sandwiches, omelets, pigs in blankets, and deviled eggs combined was a bonus. People need cookbook instructions for these? In this day and age? Really?

Something that I wasn't expecting was to fall madly in love with the book's brownie recipe. Before it, I had never made brownies from scratch, and definitely had never gone looking for walnuts at the store. I mean, who uses them? People who live in Midwestern America? How clueless my youth apparently was.

It was a simple and beautiful recipe. A dense, moist, fudge-y, dark chocolate cake, studded with walnuts.

But it wasn't enough. I'm a dessert monster, and one who wanted more.

More.

MORE!

After culinary school and some restaurant experience, the recipe was attacked with gusto this year, resulting various incarnations, but truth be told, sometimes, I don't know where to draw the line, and need a second opinion.

"Is it too much?" I asked on the phone, while thinking of another brownie idea in a grocery aisle.

"Like, there are peanuts over here, and chocolate everywhere, plus salt going on up there, is it overkill, or is it whoa, all this together is awesome?"

Because if you asked me, it's totally cool, but ask a judge on a cooking reality show, and I don't know, maybe they would say something like "Oooh, zee chocolate ees overpowered by all zee ozzer junk you threw een eet," in a fancy French accent.

Balance? Please. Because I was totally considering throwing more junk all up in it.

And did!

After mucho daydreaming, experimenting, and looking for excuses to buy more types of salt (my kitchen counter is having space issues), I came up with newer recipes, including ones with

• Maldon salt flakes
• fleur de sel
• Callebaut dark chocolate
• bacon
• brown sugar
• peanut butter cheesecake batter
• lemon zest
• vanilla bean cream cheese (with Brillat-Savarin)
• and more nuts.

Batches were tested on friends, family, coworkers, my former chef (who always spits food out after tasting, but didn't spit this out, major moment of joy, check!), and a party full of Yelpers.

Measurable results? High-fives, hugs, people jumping and yelling early in the morning, job offers, and three marriage proposals, no joke.

This recipe just might let you have your way with the world. So use it carefully!

The most current recipe has a smoky, crackly brown sugar-salt-bacon-pecan topping, on a slightly crunchy crust that you would expect from a pound cake (my favourite part of one of my mom's favourite obsessively-repeated recipes), covering a still-surprisingly fudge-y, rich cake with the occasional walnut chunklet and chocolate chip.

I named these the Deadly Brownies.

They are so rich that if you eat an entire pan of them alone, you will probably need open heart surgery.

Immediately.

Or because you and our best friend could get into a major scuffle over the last piece.

My fridge is packed with tofu, dark green vegetables and kimchi. I eat pretty healthily so I can have crazy things like this. And find my way out of a dessert-related scrap if need be.

FYI, aerate your dang flour before measuring, all ingredients should be at room temperature, and now is not the time to cheap out on them. Use the best quality vanilla, chocolate, eggs, bacon, etc that you can afford. This is a time-consuming recipe that'll probably get devoured quickly, so make the deliciousness worth your while.

Speaking of which, I got my hands on some amazing Fraser Valley heritage bacon from Big Lou's Butcher Shop. I really like what they do there, and the bacon comes from unmedicated, pastured pork, which is better (flavour-wise, nutritionally, and environmentally) than pork raised in huge, dirty, sad, crowded confinement facilities. Is this true? Hope so. I've had jobs where I felt like a caged animal ready for death, for jeez's sake, and that's no good for any living creature.

Word to the wise: Bacon shrinks a lot and fits easily in your mouth. Make extra.

The Deadly Brownies
Yields 1 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pan
Prep time:  45 minutes
Bake time: 35 - 40 minutes


They're outrageous, decadent, and a mouthful with a lot of nerve. Best served in small pieces, with glasses of milk and scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, or blended into a milkshake. Many years from now, candied bacon and pecans will have to be pried from my cold, dead hands. True story.

PS: I started out making and altering this recipe by measuring with grams for the most crucial variable ingredients, for best results (if you're crazy about accuracy like moi), but it will also work out great if you use the cup measurements. One batch was made where all of the weighted ingredients were shifted back and forth into measuring cups and spoons, since not everybody has a kitchen scale. My brain hurts.

Brownie Batter WET
87g  /  6 tbsp butter
60g  /  1/3 cup good quality semisweet chocolate (chips or chopped)
200g  /  1 cup sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 large eggs (crack two open, beat one, and save half of that one for the cheesecake batter)

Brownie Batter DRY
1/4 tsp fine kosher salt
87g  /  1/2 cup + 1/4 cup (minus 1 1/2 tsp) all-purpose flour
25g  /  1/4 cup pecans or walnuts (or buy little walnut chunks)
87g  /  1/2 cup good quality semisweet chocolate (chips or chopped)

Topping
6 strips roasted bacon, chopped
1 tsp fleur de sel
1/8 cup pecans, chopped
2 tbsp brown sugar

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Batter
1/2 cup cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 a large egg
3 tbsp peanut butter (natural, crunchy, unsalted)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
pinch of fine kosher salt


Roast the bacon at 375°F until fully cooked: No longer wiggly and wet, but crisp and brick-red, not overdone, about 10 minutes, depending on your oven.

Chop all nuts for the recipe and set aside, while bacon is cooking.

Set bacon aside when cooked, and tilt the pan to let grease drain off as the strips cool, or reserve the fat immediately.

Open the oven for about 20 seconds, and turn heat down to 350°F (180°C).

In a heavy-bottomed pot, or double-boiler, melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate over low heat. Stir occasionally, remove from heat when melted, and add sugar. Stir until fully mixed, let cool slightly.

While melting chocolate/butter, line your baking pan with parchment paper.

In a metal bowl, whip the cheesecake batter's cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the egg, peanut butter, vanilla and salt. Mix until fully combined. Set aside.

Over a bowl, set the DRY chopped nuts and semisweet chocolate into a fine strainer. Shake the salt and flour over them to coat and sift at once.

Chop the bacon into tiny pieces, about the size of "Bacon Bits".

When melted chocolate is only slightly warm, add eggs. Beat well after each addition. Add and vanilla extract. Gently stir in flour in 2 additions, and fold in DRY chocolate and nuts. Do not over-mix.

Pour half of the chocolate brownie batter into the pan. Push it into the corners and make sure it gets spread out.

Dollop the batter with half of the peanut butter cheesecake. Try and cover a lot of area.

Cover with the remaining brownie batter, followed with the remaining cheesecake batter.

Tap the pan hard on the counter a few times to disperse any air bubbles and level the brownies.

If you feel like getting funky, use a knife and make swirls with the cheesecake, to try and get some in every bite.

Sprinkle the top evenly with fleur de sel, followed by bacon, pecans, then brown sugar. Press the topping down lightly.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes (depending on your oven) on the center level rack. Don't use the convection fan; you'll burn everything on top. The brownies will puff up a bit and a crack might form down the middle. Don't worry about it. They will shrink back down when cool. Do not over-bake them or the edges get all hard and the fudge dries out.

There will probably be extra bacon left over. Eat it because you have nothing else to do now.

The top of the brownies should look crunchy. A toothpick/knife/cake tester will come out wet, but make sure that the middle isn't sunken or wobbly at all, and has puffed up like the sides. Cool brownies in the pan (it will continue to cook for a little while, let it do its thing), lift out after waiting at least an hour so it can solidify, and cut into squares.


I hope you like this post. It took forever to put up and it was really hard not to eat all the bacon before finishing the recipe.

Have a great weekend!

Kari