Stuffed Black Bottom Brownies

Directions

Put the sugar, cocoa powder, butter and salt into a microwave-safe bowl and heat for 10 second increments.  After each heating, vigorously mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon, and keep doing 10 second increments until the butter is completely melted and everything is well combined.  Don’t worry if you can still see sugar in there – that’ll disappear as we add more ingredients.

Once you take it out of the microwave, add in the vanilla and mix with your spoon until that’s all mixed in there as well.

Then, add in the eggs, mix again until they are well combined, and finally add in the flour doing the same – mixing until very well combined.  This may take you a minute or two.

When you’re done, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer overnight.

Next, we’ll make the filling, which should also be made the same day as the brownie dough.  Whisk together the sugar, cornstarch and salt in a small bowl and set that aside.

Put the cream cheese and the vanilla in a larger bowl and beat that with a hand mixer until it’s smooth, maybe a minute or two.  Get the first bowl you just set aside and pour those contents into the cream cheese and mix again until its well combined.  Put away your mixer – you’re done with that.

Take your bittersweet chocolate pieces (making sure they’re fairly small), and add them to the mixture.  Stir with a wooden spoon to get them evenly distributed.

Now, cover this bowl as well and put it in your fridge, also overnight.

When you’re ready to bake the cookies, take the dough out of the freezer and let it sit for 15 minutes or so.  You don’t want it to completely defrost, but you do want to be able to work with it.  While it’s defrosting (a little), take out your cookie sheets and line them with parchment paper, and preheat the oven to 350.

When the dough is ready, scoop it up into balls (maybe 1 ½ – 2 Tablespoons large) and roll each one in your hands to make them smooth.  You should be able to do about 18 to 20 of these (I got 18).

Take your filling our of the fridge – we’re gonna be stuffing some balls.

Take each ball and put an indentation in it with your thumb and add in a small dollop of the cream cheese filling. Pinch the dough around the filling so that its completely covered and roll the ball in your hand to make it smooth again.  Any cookies that can’t fit in the oven for round 1 should be put into the fridge until you’re ready to bake them.

Bake cookies for about 12 minutes or so, or until the edges and bottoms are done.  The tops may look a little wet, still, but that’s ok.

Take the sheet out of the oven and sprinkle the sea salt over each one while they’re still hot.

Let the cookies cool on the sheet, until they’re firm all around (basically, the heat from the cookie sheet continues to cook them, even though they’re not in the oven any more).  Once they’re firm, move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Store them in an airtight container, and refrigerate any ones you don’t eat right away (they’re filled with cream cheese goodness, after all).

As I said above, this will make about 20.  20 amazing, surprising cookie/brownie things!