As I have mentioned in the past, this project has forced me to take chances and try out new ideas combining a variety of ingredients that I have on hand to make new food.
My husband's birthday is today and he loves chocolate cherries. I knew that I had some leftover light cherry pie filling from a dessert I made a while back. I knew it would be a while before I used cherry pie filling again so I froze it in a zippy bag. I also knew that I had scored a good stockpile of cake mixes and brownie mixes. I thought, chocolate cherry brownie as a birthday "cake" would be great since we are pretty caked out from recent birthday festivities.
Also, because of recent birthday cakes, I have leftover frosting, not to mention a bowl of chocolate truffle mixture that was going to be an Easter treat but never came to pass. Without spending a great deal of time on the subject, we were going to make these with the boys on Easter but the day got away from us and it took longer than the prescribed 30 minutes for the chocolate to set up. We were well into bedtime before it was going to happen so it...well...it didn't happen. As a result, we have a bowl of 2 cups of melted chocolate chips mixed with 1 container of melted Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting. There are worse things to have stocked in your fridge.
So, here I was with dark chocolate brownie mix along with the oil, water, and eggs required to make that happen, 1 Cup cherry pie filling, a tasty bowl of truffle mix (again, that is 2 cups of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 container of Chocolate Frosting, melted), and some leftover confetti frosting (the white kind with the candy bits).
I followed the package directions and used a 13X9X2 inch pan for the brownies, adding some of the cherry pie filling juice to the batter. Once the batter was mixed and spread into the pan, I melted the chocolate truffle mixture in the microwave and stirred in the cherry pie filling. I very carefully drizzled the chocolate cherry mixture on top of the brownie batter until there was a smooth layer of melted chocolate cherry.
I baked it for 30 minutes at 325 degrees and started to worry because it was all still very liquid and the brownie should have been done. I covered it with tented aluminium foil to keep the edges from burning and let it cook for another 10 minutes. The brownie mixture started cooking away from the sides and I lifted the pan and saw that the bottom had set too. It dawned on me that there was melted chocolate and frosting on top and if that was even a little warm, it would be liquid. So, I took a leap of faith and pulled the pan out to cool.
It cooled completely and the whole thing set up beautifully. I do recommend making this several hours before and refrigerating it or making it a day ahead. I made it yesterday so this morning, I heated the confetti frosting and drizzled it over the top to make it more festive. I must say, these are worth the trouble beacuse they are absolutely delicious.
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