Sun, Sweets and Soccer

Temperatures are starting to soar! Finally summer is here. After weeks of rain and autumn weather we finally get to wear shorts, sleeveless tops and summer dresses, (for some of us accessorized with an ugly fleshcoloured fortified sock). Yes, I will wear it because when I don’t it makes peoples scream: O.M.G!! Look at you. What have you done to your legs! They are huge! Hm, why, thank you ever so much. This happened last Saturday when I decided to wear a dress without the stocking, no crutches, came to cheer my husband while he was participating in the annual tiny town “Sports day”. So much for being inconspicuous! Needless to say I only stayed for the 5 minutes it took to turn all heads to look at my legs after this exclamation. (You know, my legs are a part of my body I feel most conscious of, they áre huge even in normal days….let alone now). So I smiled, offered a short explanation and hobbled away, head high, shoulders square, tummy tucked in.

Sunday was the annual “meet and greet” with the husbands longtime study friends and their families, the kids play, adults catch up on news on family and business affairs, we picknick and have a really good time. I decided to bring some brownies to snack on. I baked, the Husband sliced (70 small pieces, he counted!) and they disappeared in the wink of an eye. Must have been good!

Marbled Cream Cheese Brownies
Cream cheese mix:
85 gr cream cheese, room temperature
2 tbs butter, room temperature
60 gr sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tbs ap-flour
vanilla flavouring
Mix cream cheese and butter till soft and fluffy, add sugar and mix till smooth. Add egg, flour and flavouring and beat.

Brownie mix:
4 oz chocolate
110gr (1/2 cup) butter
2 eggs
1 ts vanille-essence
190 gr sugar
salt
60 gr ap-flour, sifted
Melt chocolate and butter (au bain marie or microwave), whisk till smooth and let cool a bit before adding eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, sugar and salt and whisk. Gently add the sifted flour and stir till smooth. You could add nuts if you would like to.
I lined my pan with buttered foil for easy access, and scooped 2/3 of the batter in. Then proceed with the cream cheese mix, try to spread/pour the mix evenly over the batter. Top with remaining brownie batter. Pull a knife through the layers of the batter in zigzags or swirls to create a marble effect. Bake for 35 minutes or test with a skewer, it should come out slightly moist. Cool in the pan, then using two ends of the foil as handles, lift out of the pan.
This recipe fills a 20x20 cm pan. I doubled (almost tripled) the recipe to fill a 40x25 cm pan.

Result: great fudgy brownies with a smooth touch from the cream cheese! Definitely a keeper!

And......we won our first game in the Fifa 2006 Worldcup!! Not overly convincing but hey, we won! Todays matches: Italy-Ghana and United States-Czech republic as well as Australia-Japan I think I'll cheer for the Aussies as they have Dutchman Guus Hiddink as their coach.