.

This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie bake-along was very intriguing. My first thought when I saw that it was called “Cottage Cheese Pufflets” was that these were going to be some kind of biscuit or roll. It wasn’t until I actually pulled the cook book down to write down the ingredients for my shopping list that I saw that they’re actually cookies!

I normally love working with pastry dough, but as the comments in the post for this recipe shows, the dough for these was a nightmare. Even after making sure it was completely chilled it was still pretty sticky, and I was afraid I might have overworked it. I really don’t know though because while they weren’t as puffy as I imagined, they did puff up a bit. Looking at the pictures from the others who made them, I think I’m pretty safe!

I had some apricot preserves in the pantry so I decided to use that for the filling. Once they had cooled a bit and I had a bite, I decided it needed just a bit more sweetness, so I made a quick glaze and put a drop of almond extract in it. What was a not-too-sweet fruity little pastry totally popped, and the almond and apricot go together very well.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie project was Espresso Cheesecake Brownies.

These fantastic little things cover all the (my) bases: chocolate, cream cheese, coffee, and sour cream. (I love sour cream in cheesecakes — it’s genius.)

Now, I totally messed up when I did these. I’ve been on Benadryl for a few days (allergies), and was distracted and didn’t read through the recipe first like I usually do. When I made the cheesecake part, I dumped in the flour, salt and baking powder mixture that was supposed to have gone into the chocolate/brownie mixture. Instead of scrapping it all and starting over (because I had no extra cream cheese or bittersweet chocolate), I went with it.

I kept the cheesecake mixture how I had botched it, with the extra flour, the salt and the baking powder. I then re-mixed the same ratio for the chocolate/brownie mixture like I should have done in the first place and added it to the chocolate. Before adding it all to the pan, though, I mixed in about 1/4 of the cheesecake mixture into the brownie mix. (I don’t know why — just trying to cover my butt, I guess.) Then I put the brownie batter in the pan, the cheesecake layer on top of that, and then the dots of brownie to do the swirling.

I then went all out and followed a suggestion from another participant the TWD site and added about an ounce of chocolate to my sour cream frosting when it was heating up. And you know what, these are the most decadent brownies I’ve ever made. I’m honestly surprised that such a mess-up not only worked in the oven, but ended up so tasty, too!

For those family members that don’t do coffee/espresso (though really, it’s so awesome with chocolate), I think you can safely leave that out. Speaking of which, I couldn’t find espresso powder at the store anyway, so I used one and-a-half times the amount of just instant coffee granules instead, and it turned out great. When I make these again (“mistake” and all!) I’m going to add some finely chopped walnuts to the brownie batter.