Fudgy Nutella Brownies With Cream Cheese Frosting -- The Cake I Made for Myself

I turned eighteen on Monday. October 3, 2016. I woke up in my apartment and lay there for a minute and waited to feel different. I didn't. I felt like myself, which is maybe the point — that the version of you on the other side of a birthday is the same person who went to sleep, just with a different number attached. But this number means something. This number means I am an adult in the eyes of the state of Alabama, which has been my legal guardian for seventeen years and eleven months and now, officially, is not. The file is closed. The case is closed. Savannah Marie Clarke: resolved. I don't know what resolved means when it's a person. I don't think I'm resolved. I think I'm just beginning.

I went to work. The toddlers did not know it was my birthday and did not care, because toddlers have a profoundly healthy sense of perspective about other people's milestones. Caleb threw a block at the wall. Mia sang a song that had no melody and no end. Thomas fell asleep on my lap during story time and drooled on my arm, which I am choosing to interpret as a birthday gift.

After work I drove to Gloria and James's. Gloria met me at the door with a coconut cake — three layers, from scratch, with the thick white frosting and the shredded coconut pressed into the sides that takes her half a day to make. This cake is an event. This cake is not for ordinary Tuesdays. She makes it for occasions that matter, and I am, apparently, an occasion that matters. James was at the kitchen table with a cardboard box, and inside the box was a set of cast-iron skillets — his mother's, he said. Three of them, black and seasoned with decades of use, the kind of heavy that means history. He said, "These cooked a lot of meals for a lot of people and now they're yours." I held the biggest one and it weighed more than some of the toddlers at my job and I understood that James Martin had just given me an inheritance. People don't give cast iron to people they expect to leave. Cast iron is forever. He was saying: you're not temporary.

We ate the cake. Gloria put one candle on it — "You only need one, baby, you're starting fresh" — and I blew it out and didn't make a wish because everything I would have wished for was already in that kitchen. I drove home with the skillets on the passenger seat, heavy and dark and mine. I hung the curtains I bought at Walmart last week. I put the skillets on the stove. I stood in my apartment and tried to make it feel like home. It doesn't yet. But the skillets help. The skillets help a lot.

Gloria’s coconut cake will never be something I can fully recreate — it belongs to her kitchen, her hands, the half-day she gave it. But a few weeks after my birthday, once the skillets were seasoned and the curtains were straight and the apartment was starting to feel like mine, I wanted to bake something just for me. No occasion. No candles. Just the act of making something good in my own space, with my own groceries, in one of those cast-iron skillets sitting right there on the stove. These Nutella brownies with cream cheese frosting are what I landed on — fudgy and a little decadent and topped with something tangy enough to cut through all that chocolate, which felt exactly right for a girl who is, apparently, just beginning.

Fudgy Nutella Brownies With Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 16

Ingredients

• For the Brownies:
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup Nutella
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2–3 tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk

Instructions

1. Preheat & prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment paper, leaving overhang on two sides, and lightly grease with cooking spray.
2. Melt butter and Nutella. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and Nutella together, stirring until smooth and fully combined. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
3. Add sugar and eggs. Whisk the granulated sugar into the Nutella mixture until combined. Add eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir in vanilla extract.
4. Fold in dry ingredients. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Using a rubber spatula, fold just until no dry streaks remain — do not overmix.
5. Bake. Pour batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 28–32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter). Do not overbake.
6. Cool completely. Let brownies cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 1 hour. They must be fully cooled before frosting.
7. Make the frosting. Beat softened cream cheese with a hand mixer on medium speed until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add powdered sugar and vanilla; mix on low until combined, then increase to medium and beat until smooth. Add heavy cream one tablespoon at a time until frosting is spreadable.
8. Frost and slice. Spread cream cheese frosting in an even layer over the cooled brownies. Lift from the pan using parchment overhang, cut into 16 squares with a sharp knife (wiping the blade between cuts for clean edges), and serve.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 105mg