friday, february 16th, 2007

Cheesecake. The heart pitters.  Brownies. It patters. Perhaps the combination of the two is what makes its feathery beat whole. It is a rather stellar (and obscenely decadent) combination after all. This recipe from Nicole Kaplan, rather stellar in her own right, nudges you out to the brink of excess and just when you're about to tumble away into a sugary river of gluttony, your wildly beating heart tells you that it is not the time, as the call of another bite of cheesecake brownie bar demands your attention.

The best news of all, eating cheesecake no longer has to be a guilt inducing proposition. The first recorded mention of cheesecake was in ancient Greece where it was served to athletes at the first Olympics in 776BC. If a Greek Adonis initiated his barefoot 26.2 mile run to Marathon with a sliver of cheesecake,  then it must be a healthy habit. Then again, the man ran barefoot for 26.2 miles. Perhaps he was not such a sound fellow after all.

It was nearly 900 years before cheesecake was mentioned again, but it is a safe bet that the Greeks weren't writing about it because they were spending too much time consuming it. In 230AD the Greek food writer Athenaeus penned the first recorded cheesecake recipe. Yes, it is brief, but pleasure often is, isn't it? 

Take cheese and pound it till smooth and pasty; put cheese in a brazen sieve; add honey and spring wheat flour. Heat in one mass, cool, and serve.

As is a typical migration, the Romans snatched up the cheesecake recipe from the Greeks and ran with it, right up to their temples where they offered the gods their dreamy cakes for several centuries. Since Roman civilization thrived, it seems the gods were just as euphoric about cheesecake as we are. The Romans carried their cakes of fermented cheer with them when they stormed through Western Europe and Great Britain, thereby proving that even a conquering army can be generous. Yes, they usurped the land from its rightful owners but in return, they offered cheesecake, and in the end, is that not a fair trade?

With its firm grip on the whole of Western civilisation, cheesecake thrived in a myriad of forms. Since cream cheese is a relatively new invention, popular ingredients of the time were cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and the French cheese Neufchatel. This is the cheese that American dairymen were attempting to recreate in 1872 when they stumbled upon something even creamier, cream cheese. When James L. Kraft invented pasteurization in 1912 and began marketing Philadelphia cream cheese to the masses, cheesecake became a whole new velvety animal.

I'm sure the fact that the Greeks invented cheesecake a few millennia ago is disturbing to New York Cheesecake devotees who would like to believe that it was yet another hometown invention of pioneering New Yorkers, but even though cheesecake has thrived without the assistance of New Yorkers for centuries, they did help to perfect the cheesecake. The ideal New York Cheesecake exists on its own merits, without adornment or flourish, comprised of nothing more than cream cheese, heavy cream, eggs and sugar. Arnold Reuben, owner of the legendary Turf Restaurant on 49th and Broadway, claims to have been the first to make a cheesecake using cream cheese in 1926. His recipe was so popular that it won a  gold medal at that year's World's Fair and most importantly, it sent countless customers into that state of mind we are all longing for, cheesecake nirvana.

The following recipe should do the same for you; each creamy bite provides a little slice of cheesy heaven and when matched by the richly moist, chewy brownie, you just might find yourself leaving a little offering to the gods in your kitchen temple.

Nicole Kaplan's Cheesecake Brownies

For the brownie layer

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarse chop

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarse chop

3/4 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1/2 cup cake flour

For the cheesecake layer

Six 8-ounce packages cream cheese

1 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted

1. Lightly grease two 8 x 8 inch baking pans and line bottoms with parchment paper.

2. To make brownie layer, combine butter, brown sugar, semisweet and unsweetened chocolate in a double broiler (a bowl sitting over a pot of boiling water). Over medium heat, stir occasionally until chocolate has melted and mixture is smooth. Add granulated sugar, eggs and cake flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until just incorporated.

3.Scrape batter into prepared pans and spread in even layer. Cover pans with plastic wrap and place in freezer for at least one hour or overnight.

4. When ready to make the brownies, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

5. For cream cheese layer, combine cream cheese and sugar in bowl of electric mixer fitted with a paddle and mix on medium speed for one minute, or until smooth. Scrape down edges of bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, thoroughly incorporating each one before adding the next. Pour cream cheese batter on top of brownie layer and spread in an even layer. Using a spoon, decorate the surface of the brownies by drizzling melted semisweet chocolate in a loose design.

6. Place pans on middle rack of oven and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the cream cheese layer is golden brown and set. Cool for a few minutes and then place in the freezer for one hour. Remove the brownies from the pan and cut into serving pieces. Eat immediately or cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Yield: two 8 x 8 inch pans or 16 large brownies