Bitchin' Brownies!

I am a recent convert to Bitchin' Kitchen on the Cooking Channel. Nadia G is HI-larious, and her recipes always look amazing! Yesterday, my roomie helped me make Nadia G's Dark Chocolate and Goat Cheese Brownies. The recipe calls for refrigerating them after baking and cooling, so I just tried one today, and they ROCK! They have a dense texture, deep, fudgy flavor with notes of caramel (due to lots of brown sugar), and the goat cheese swirl is much like cream cheese, but with more tang. The only changes that I made to the recipe were to make half again as much of the goat cheese topping (to use the whole 6 oz. roll), and I sweetened it with white sugar so that it didn't turn the topping brown. Oh, and I added a teaspoon of vanilla, so maybe it was off-white. Anyway, they are DELISH!

Dark Chocolate and Goat Cheese Brownies
(Source: adapted from Bitchin' Kitchen)

BROWNIE BATTER:
1 cup chopped unsweetened dark chocolate
2 sticks butter
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour (or pecans, if you prefer)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

GOAT CHEESE MIXTURE:
3/4 cup fresh creamy goat cheese, at room temperature
5 tablespoons (white) sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Making the batter: Place a double boiler over medium heat. Add the dark chocolate and butter to the top pan and stir until the chocolate has melted. (I did this in the microwave.) Once melted, remove the pan from the heat and let the chocolate cool slightly. Whisk in the brown sugar and eggs. With a wooden spoon, fold in the walnuts, flour and sea salt.

Making the goat cheese mixture: In a large mixing bowl, combine the goat cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Blend using an electric beater set to low speed.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Making the brownies: Line a baking dish with parchment paper and grease with the butter. (I just sprayed the pan.) Pour the brownie batter into the baking dish, then evenly scatter spoonfuls of the goat cheese mixture over the batter. With a knife, score the surface into a pattern.

Bake the brownies for 40 minutes. (I would say mine took 50 minutes or a bit longer.) When done, remove to a wire rack to cool. Once cool, cut the brownies into bars, remove them from the baking pan and refrigerate.