Nutella Cheesecake Brownies Sprinkled with Pink Himalayan Sea Salt

 I made these for the, girls only crafty retreat, my mom and I usually go to twice a year. It is always a perfect combination of girl talk, crafting, relaxation, bad chick flicks, mostly from the 80s and tons of food. These brownies are based from my favorite brownie recipe, from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess, which also happens to be one of my favorite cookbooks. This recipes makes a large amount of brownies, not only do you use a 13x9 pan but they're thick too, so don't freak out when you realize you need 3 sticks of butter and half a dozen eggs. I usually cut them fairly small because they're so rich and fudgy this time I cut them larger than normal and got about two dozens brownies. I also made the "Elvis Blondies" that have been rolling around in my head but I think they need some serious tweaking before I commit to a recipe just yet. 

   We had a few brownies left since we had a massive amount of food as usual. In sweets alone we had these brownies and my blondies along with some butter pecan cookies that were delicious and addictive, a sinful chocolate cake with coffee filling, chocolate butter cream and chocolate ganache, banana pudding that was so light and creamy, grabbed that recipe up, some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, stole that recipe too, and guava and cream cheese empanadas that were redonkulously good. That was just the sweets, don't even get me started on the hearty stew, chips, onion dip, AREPAS, got that recipe too, HOLLA, muffins, bagels, veggies and Mediterranean salad that I need that recipe for, so good! Its amazing we weren't sick from gorging ourselves. So needless to say I had some brownie leftovers that I sent to work the mister, mostly to keep me from eating them ALL. According to what I heard back, his employees LOVED them too, like rolled their eyes back in their head and started muttering things, that kind of good. I highly recommend you make these for someone with a sweet tooth or for a chocoholic, they will be indebted to you for life! 

Adapted from: Nigella Lawson's Birthday Brownies

1/4 cup Nutella

1 1/2 cup butter (3 sticks)

14 oz super dark (but not unsweetened) chocolate, chopped

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup semi sweet mini chips or chopped hazelnuts

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup Nutella

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon Pink Himalayan Sea Salt (or any type of Sea Salt, preferably a coarse grain)

Preheat over to 350° F. Butter and 9x13 baking pan and line with parchment paper. In a medium to large sauce pan, melt, Nutella, butter and chocolate over medium heat. Once melted remove from heat. In a separate bowl whisk together vanilla, eggs and sugar. Stir egg mixture, flour and chocolate chips or nuts into sauce pan. Pour batter into prepared pan and set aside. In another bowl, (I would recommend using a mixer here) whisk, cream cheese, Nutella and sugar together until smooth. Spoon medium sized dollops over the surface of the brownie batter and swirl with a knife and sprinkle on sea salt. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until mostly firm but not totally set.Allow to cool before slicing. Makes a maximum of 48 small brownies or 24 large brownies.

Robot Birthday Party Part 3... The FOOD

The recipes I used for the party are...

Cosmic Cookies via Bakerella. 

I ♥ her so much!!! They were very butterscotchy! I loved them that way though. A few people thought we should cut back on the butterscotch chips next time. But honestly I loved them that way so I will probably leave them just the way they are.

Gear Gumdrops also from Bakerella. 

Told you I love her. These are a lot  of work but very much worth it. The orange were root beer flavored and the blue were bubblegum flavored. I did two recipes and wound up with left overs. Next time I think I will do a fruit flavor and cut down to one recipe. Maybe next time I will remember to put out the treat bags so guest can take them home too.

Gadget Gellies from Food Librarian. 

I used berry blue and orange flavors. I now have a major obsession with gelatin related recipes. I bought the tiny spoons from Bake It Pretty but now they have these spoons that I think I like better. They have everything you need and more! I bought the shot glasses from Oriental Trading.

Mechanical Marshmallows

These are pretty self explanatory. Just put lollipop stick in marshmallows then dip in melted chocolate and shake on the sprinkles let set until chocolate hardens. Easy!

Contraption Cupcakes

(mango lemonade cupcakes)

I'm not going to give you the recipe I used for the cupcakes. It was a new recipe and it was dry and had a weird texture. So I recommend using this cake just add lemon zest and reduce the milk but the amount of lemon juice you add. I would add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and zest of at least 3 lemons.

For the butter cream we still haven't perefected that either. It had an amzing flavor but the textuer was odd. We used...

2-3 cup powered sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 cup fresh mango puree

but next time I think we will strain the puree and maybe cook it down until it has thickened and let it cool. Then add it to a cream cheese frosting. Maybe! Who know what I will do.

Bionic Brownies

1 cup butter
2 cups cugar
1/2 cup cocoa
4 eggs beaten
2/3 cup AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup nut optional

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease 13x9 pan. Melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Add sugar and cocoa; stir to blend. Remove from heat, stir in eggs. Stir together flour, salt and baking soda; stir into chocolate mixture. Stir in vanilla, chocolate and nuts. Bake 30-35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from pan.

Birthday Bot Cake

(chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling)
For the cake we used Hershey's Black Magic Cake. It is our most used chocolate cake.
 For the filling...
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package of chocolate  cream sandwich cookies
Cook flour and milk together in small saucepan until thick and bubbly. Cool. In separate bowl cream shortening and butter. Beat in sugar. Beat in flour mixture and vanilla. Stir in cookies.   
 The filling for this cake can be used to make a wonderful chocolate filling, an amazing mint, coffee, caramel or peanut butter filling. Just omit cookies and add flavoring of choice.