Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies

These chocolate cheesecake brownies are from an old handwritten recipe in a book I started over twenty years ago to store my recipes. All I have is the recipe with no reference, so I can’t give proper credit to whomever created this one. But it was always a crowd pleaser, and it made a lot of people very happy when I brought it to work yesterday. I like the cream cheese part, but for me the brownie is the shining star – it is dense and rich and chocolatey.

Although the recipe has two steps, it is really easy and quite quick to whip up.  I like recipes that don’t require softening the butter before beginning, because I always forget to take it out of the fridge ahead of time and then have to wait a long time for it to soften.  In this one you melt the butter, so no need to soften. You do, however, need to soften the cream cheese – but I cheated by putting it in the microwave for a few seconds.

Instead of regular cream cheese I used Tofutti.  It turned out fine, but I think it is better with the real thing.  Tofutti is a great product, but in this case it ended up being a little thinner than I would have liked.

What you need for the cream cheese layer:

• 250 grams cream cheese (not the spreadable kind)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

What you need for the brownie layer:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

What you do:

1. Grease a 9-inch baking pan with a little butter.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F.
3. In a mixing bowl beat the cream cheese, then gradually add the sugar, egg and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.
4. To make the brownie layer melt the butter, then pour it into another mixing bowl.  Stir in the cocoa.
5. Beat in the sugar, vanilla and 2 eggs. I use the same beaters that still have a little bit of the cream cheese mixture on them to beat this – no need to wash in between, speeds things up!
6. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together (in reality I don’t do this very often, but you can do it if you want.) Mix until combined.
7. Pour the brownie mixture into the pan and smooth it down.  Then pour the cream cheese mixture over top of it. I like to run a knife through it to mix the two up a little.
8. Bake for 40-45 minutes.  I like to go with the shorter amount of time because I really like them when they are moist. Everybody else seems to agree!