White Chocolate Brownies with Lemon Glaze Recipe

Up until a few months ago, I walked around Melbourne in a t-shirt and jeans, come summer or winter. Because I'm not the brightest light-bulb in the box, it took me three years in Melbourne to connect the dots: that my poor health in winter correlated with the single layer of clothing I have on in the dead of winter. Just this year alone, I spent most of May and June battling a cough and runny nose. I got much better over the holidays when I flew to Singapore, but as soon as I came back to Melbourne, I succumbed to the same symptoms again within 24hrs of touchdown.   

Because everybody keeps telling me to eat some lemon and honey, I bought a huge bag of lemon, which I'm slowly making my way through. But ever since I put two and two together and started dressing more warmly, I haven't been feeling under the weather anymore. To celebrate my new-found wisdom, (and conveniently also to plow through my stash of lemons), I made this white chocolate brownie from David Lebovitz. 

It calls for white chocolate, which was pretty unusual for a brownie and piqued my curiosity. The result was a thin brownie in a gorgeous pale shade of yellow, which was something I didn't mind at all, especially once the scent of the cake started waffling from the oven.    '

Making the lemon glaze took longer than I expected, but one look at how beautifully the glaze spread over the cake, and I patted myself on the shoulders for persevering all the way to the end. The crunchy texture it added to the brownie chased away any lingering feelings about the hitches when making the glaze. 

When everything is all set and done, there is a choice between the middle portions, which is richer and denser (R's seal of approval), or the crunchier squares along the perimeters of the brownie. I left the brownie a couple of minutes longer in the oven than I should had,  and singed the edges. But as a testimony to the recipe, not one crumb remained after the photos were taken - charred or not. 

PS: Still suffering from an abundance of lemon? Alice waters' lemon cake is really really good as well.

White Chocolate Brownie with Lemon Glaze
Makes one 8-inch (20cm) cake
Recipe taken from David Lebovitz

Ingredients (White chocolate cake) 
5 1/2 ounces (150g, 11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cubed
6 ounces (170g) white chocolate, chopped
Zest of one lemon (unsprayed)
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup, plus 1 tablespoon (150g) flour

Ingredients (Lemon glaze)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (120g) powdered sugar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
(Note: I used icing mixture - powdered sugar with cornstarch - which may have led to me needing 3/4 of a lemon to get the glaze to the correct consistency)

Steps
1. Butter an 8-inch (20cm) square cake pan and line with bottom with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375º (190ºC.)

2. To make the white chocolate cake, in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, warm the butter, white chocolate, lemon zest, and salt together, stirring gently, until the chocolate is completely melted. (The mixture may not look smooth, which is normal.)

3. In a medium bowl whisk together the sugar with the eggs, then whisk in the melted white chocolate mixture.

4. Use a flexible spatula to stir in the flour, mixing just until no visible bits of flour remain. Do not overmix. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

5. Remove the cake from the oven and as soon as it’s cool enough to handle, run a knife around the edge of the cake to release it from the pan, and set the cake on a wire cooling rack, removing the parchment paper. Let the cake cool completely.

6. Make the glaze by mixing together the powdered sugar with the lemon juice until smooth. Spoon the glaze over the cake, smoothing it over the top with a metal spatula or butter knife, letting some of it drip down the sides. Once the glaze has hardened, cut the cake into portions.


Storage: 
The cake can be made up to one day in advance, and glazed, and stored at room temperature.

Notes from David L: 
Make sure to use white chocolate that is real white chocolate; the only fat that is should contain is cocoa butter (and fat from the milk) and it should be a pale ivory color, rather than pure white. If there is another fat listed, such as vegetable or palm oil, it’s not pure white chocolate. Products made with those ingredients are often labeled “white confectionery coating.” 

For those who live outside the United States, powdered sugar is also called confectioners sugar or icing sugar. (In France, it’s sucre glace.)