Bittersweet Brownies and Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

As I close in on the last couple of dozen recipes in Dorie Greenspan's fabulous book, Baking from My Home to Yours, I am trying to bake the choices of the Tuesdays with Dorie gang and also catch up by baking some recipes that were chosen before I joined the group.

This week, I baked Bittersweet Brownies (one of the TWD selections) and Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte (my catch-up recipe).  First off, I got out lots of butter and eggs and allowed them to come to room temperature.

Getting ready with eggs and BUTTER

The brownies are easy to make with butter, sugar, melted bittersweet chocolate and just a little flour.  There are no nuts in this recipe, but the texture of the finished product is so wonderfully fudgy that I didn't miss the nuts.  I cut them in gorgeous pieces . . . .but you'll just have to take my word for it because I neglected to get a picture before they were consumed by the attendees of our contra dance planning committee!

The Torte has a lovely pre-baked crust which is supposed to go up the sides of a spring form pan.  It's chilled, then partially baked while lined with form-fitting foil and pie weights.  What happened to my crust, however, was that the sides squished down so I couldn't pour in as much of the filling as I wanted to.  There is a layer of cherry preserves on the crust, then the cream cheese/eggs/cottage cheese/vanilla filling.

Baking the crust

It was super tasty, although my "hidden" berries snuck up to the top.

A little bit of cherry preserves sneaking out

A lovely week of baking!  Next time, I'll try to remember to keep my camera handy.