Ask a Chef reveals the secrets of those superb dishes you ate in cafes and restaurants and wanted to try making yourself.
Cinnamon Cafe's chocolate cheesecake brownie
Brownie:
90g butter
½ cup cocoa
1 cup caster sugar (less 2 Tbsp reserved for the filling)
2 eggs
¾ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup walnuts
Filling:
200g cream cheese
2 Tbsp caster sugar (taken from the 1 cup above)
1 tsp vanilla essence
Method
Melt butter and stir in cocoa.
Set aside 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar to use later in the filling. Beat together remaining sugar and the eggs until thick and creamy. Mix with the melted butter and cocoa.
Combine the sifted flour and baking powder with the walnuts. Fold into the egg and butter mixture.
To make the filling, warm the cream cheese to soften, and beat in the reserved 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and vanilla.
Grease and line a slice tray.
Spread half the chocolate mixture in the tray, then spread over the cream cheese filling.
Top with the rest of the chocolate mixture.
Bake in an oven preheated to 180degC for 35-40 minutes.
For a gluten-free version, substitute 3/8 cup tapioca flour, 3/8 cup rice flour and ½ tsp guar gum for the flour, and use gluten-free baking powder. This flour mix can be used in many baking recipes.
Requested by Ben Williamson, of Green Island.
This recipe comes from Cinnamon Cafe, in St Andrew St, Dunedin.
If you have enjoyed a dish in an Otago cafe or restaurant and would like the recipe, write to Ask a Chef, Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin, fax 474-7422, or email odt.features@odt.co.nz, including your name, address and a daytime telephone number, and we will request it.
