Of course I get sick the week I decide to start a blog about brownies. It also rudely interrupted the fourth week I had been going to the gym consistently- but I’m more upset about the fact that I couldn’t bake anything last week. Yes, I was that sick. But now I’m on the mend and can share with you the best basic brownie recipe. These are tried and true, easy, and amazingly adaptable. What do I mean by adaptable? Well cream cheese is a wonderful addition to any food: bagels, chocolate, frosting, brownies….

–A quick aside: I have shocking news. Apparently, some “chef ” (yes, I’m sarcastically using air quotes, except they’re typed) out there said that brownies aren’t worth making. A coworker guiltily confessed to me that she’d never made brownies because some jerk wannabe cookman said that desserts such as cakes and I-don’t-even-know-what-else require real skill and someone can’t actually tell the difference between a box mix and a made from scratch batch. Excuse me, sir! Well… I probably shouldn’t be so angry. He obviously has never experienced the joy of a melt-in-you-mouth, gooey brownie. Such a sad and lonely existence. Okay, aside over.–

For anything I bake, I don’t mess around with chocolate, especially when they’re in my brownies. I use ScharffenBerger if I really, really like you or you’re my family and I don’t want to hear about how “these are great but they could have been the best.” (That’s an exaggeration: my family knows I would slap those brownies right our of their hands and give them to someone who wasn’t being spoiled and sassy.) Usually, I use Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Baking Bars. Mostly because they’re great. And partly because it’s often on sale at Safeway so I can stock up on it. Oh, and because Safeway always labels it a “local item” and I find it funny. Google should do that, too. If you pop up Google and you’re in the Bay Area, it should say, “Thanks for supporting a local business!”

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Basic Brownie Recipe:

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 cup flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 9×13 inch pan.

Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave. Add the melted chocolate to the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Then add the flour, eggs, and vanilla and stir until combined. Spread the mixture into a pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out slightly gooey. (I like my brownies a little gooey in the middle.)

And the promised adaptation of cream cheese:

8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp flour

Place the cream cheese in a bowl and whip the cream cheese until smooth. Unless you’re Rosie the Riveter or haven’t been to the gym since forever, use an electric mixer. Add the sugar, egg, and flour and, again, mix until smooth.

Drop dollops of the cream cheese batter on top of the brownie batter and incorporate the cream cheese and brownie with a toothpick. (Just drag the tooth pick lengthwise a few times.) Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until cream cheese is golden-brown (not brownie brown).

And that’s it!

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Not so hard, right? I’m almost embarrassed to admit how easy these are since I make them all the time and people really like them. “What’s your secret?” they ask. “Love,” I whisper, creepily. Then everyone just laughs and laughs because they all know that for me, love = chocolate.