White Chocolate Brownies

Did you hear the collective sigh of relief the other day? The June Tuesdays with Dorie recipe picks were posted, and the much anticipated white chocolate brownies were selected by Marthe at Culinary Delights. This may be the single-most lobbied for dessert of all time. Clara didn't pick them when it was her turn, but she waited patiently (well, sort of) for someone else to pick them. Enter Marthe and our first pick for June.

I'm glad there was a photo of these in the book because I would have been crushed if I hadn't known what they were supposed to look like. For me the word "brownie" evokes feelings of anticipation for a treat like this

or these

Like, aren't brownies that don't have chocolate called blondies? I guess not. Because these have not a whisper of chocolate (that is, chocolate made from cacao) and Dorie still calls them brownies. I've learned to expect the unexpected from Dorie (as with the last recipe we made with white chocolate) so I did not add chocolate to this recipe. Somebody check on Kayte. She may have just fainted.

You may not be able to tell from my photo, but this is a layer of cake made with almond meal, which is topped with meringue before being baked.

I actually read the instructions fully before making the recipe, and knew immediately that flipping a meringue-topped dessert onto any surface and then re-flipping it was a guaranteed fail for your klutzy friend (me). So I used a large piece of parchment to line the pan.

My one mistake was to use pasteurized egg whites instead of cracking three eggs and separating them. We eat a ton of egg white omelettes and I always have a surplus of yolks. The pasteurized whites didn't beat up as nicely as I would have liked even though my bowl and beaters were scrupulously clean and grease-free.

OK, so maybe there was one other tiny mistake. I didn't want to buy premium white chocolate so I used the last of a bag of Choc-au-Lait chips (yeah, yeah, I know they don't melt as well but it worked out in the end). They finished in first place in the Cook's Illustrated white baking chip taste test so I figured they'd be good. Plus they were already in my pantry.

The P&Qs showed that these babies needed more time in the oven to bake completely, so I baked them for 48 minutes. The parchment liner made it hard to tell if the brownies were pulling away from the sides of the pan, but the meringue topping was crackly.

These were tasty but just not my thing. They lasted a good long time at work, which is pretty unusual. Still, I'm glad these finally were picked as I know lots of my fellow TWD bakers loved them. You can find them all here.

Thanks, Marthe, for hosting us this week and making Clara happy with your pick! If you'd like the recipe, Marthe will have it posted for you.