The "Anti-PMS" Cake

Men, relinquish yourselves from that week of fire and brimstone and suffer the lashings of the crimson tide no more... for tonight, we dine in chocolate heaven!

(Recipe from Recipe Zaar, by Lennie):

CHOCOLATE MASCARPONE BROWNIES

Ingredients
BROWNIES
1 cup unsalted butter
3 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, softened
3 large eggs, at room-temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

GANACHE
6 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tablespoons whipping cream
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 325°F; have ready a buttered 8-inch square glass cake pan (we sprayed with pam instead of buttering it).
2) First, prepare the brownies.
3) In a small saucepan, melt the butter and bring it to just below a boil; have the chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl--pour the hot butter over the chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds.
4) Stir until chocolate is completely melted.
5) Sift in the sugar and cocoa powder (I didn't sift, I just slowly mixed it in.)
6) With a wooden spoon, beat in the mascarpone, eggs (30 minutes on the counter brings them to room temperature) and vanilla, mixing until smooth.
7) Gently fold the flour and salt into the batter.
8) Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly (Lennie mentions, "This is important since, if the batter isn't spread evenly, it won't bake evenly.")
9) Place into preheated oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean (45 minutes did it for me).
10) Place pan on a cooling rack and let brownies cool for 10-15 minutes, while you now make the ganache.
11) Place chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl; in a small saucepan, bring the cream and the butter to just below the boiling point, over medium heat.
12) Pour this hot cream-butter mixture over the chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds, then stir until smooth; ganache is now ready to use and can be spread over the brownies.
13) Should you wish to wait a bit, make sure the ganache is warm when you spread over the brownies, as it does firm up which makes spreading hard to do.
14) Don't cut into the brownies until ganache has firmed up; I find it best to put the brownies into the fridge to speed this along; once the ganache is firm the brownies do not need to be kept in the fridge, though.

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Now, I have to say, these are pretty tasty. They're rich yet light, with a perfect sugar balance (not too sweet, just sweet enough) and manage to pull off that fudge-like consistency with a more cake-like structure. That being said, they weren't brownies so much as a fudge cake. The flavor was a little bitter, but that's because there's enough chocolate packed into these puppies that you'll be horny for 2 weeks and have a sugar-rush strong enough to keep you tweaking worse than that crackie who lives in the ally. My only true complaint is that for what I paid for the mascarpone cheese, I expected it to be a little more present in the end flavor. I've never used mascarpone before, and if you've never tried it you should. It's kind of like a very mild, delicately sweet cream with a cream cheese consistency. Anyways, I suppose it added to the texture and maybe very slightly to the flavor, however it's an expensive ingredient and I felt that it was out of the spotlight. I'm sure the mascarpone could very easily have been replaced with something else and turned out better, because the biggest disappointment in the cake's flavor was the absence of that beautiful balance of sweet and salty. A better cheese for the job would have filled that necessity.

CONS: Slightly bitter, not necessarily worth the price of the ingredients, lacking in mascarpone as the feature flavor

PROS: Great for natural aphrodisiacal highs, hormonal woman