Goat Cheese Brownies

Goat cheese is high up on my list of favorite cheeses for its tangy, smooth, and infinitely flexible nature in its pairings with foods and flavors. You could use it anywhere you could use cream cheese so it occurred to me that the giant log of goat cheese (chevre) sitting in my fridge could be part of an exciting new adventure: goat cheese brownies! Of course I am not the first person to come up with this idea and I enjoyed reading about these industrious women and their brownie company: http://www.vermontbrowniecompany.com/dark-chocolate-chevre.html.  I also found another food blogger who made some attempts at these brownies, and I ended up modifying her recipe for the chevre swirl and adding it to Jamie Oliver's brownie recipe as the base. The end result: a classy brownie dessert that hits the sweet and salty craving right on the nose!

Photo courtesy of my beautiful wife!

Goat Cheese Brownies
Chevre Swirl
8 oz goat cheese (room temperature)
1 egg + 1 egg white
1 Tbs flour

Beat all ingredients together until silky smooth.

Brownie Base
1 c. unsalted butter + 2 Tbs salted butter
7 oz dark good quality chocolate (I used Callebaut dark chocolate pieces)
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
3/4 c. cocoa
4 eggs
sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Melt the butter and chopped up chocolate in a double boiler, or a thick-bottomed pan over low heat, stirring constantly til smooth. Sift together the dry ingredients. Beat together eggs (and vanilla if desired). Stir the melted chocolate and butter into the dry ingredients until mixed and then beat in eggs until smooth.
Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Spread chevre mixture on top and cut swirls through to produce marbling effect. Sprinkle with sea salt as desired. Bake 25-35 minutes until outer edges are done and middle is still slightly gooey.

Picture to come....