Cheesecake Brownies

It's always fun to make dessert for people, and so gratifying as well. My general plan when invited to someone's home for dinner is to bring dessert. I love the challenge of deciding what treats people will enjoy, what their tastes are. The past few times we've had dinner at hubby's mother's house, I've received mixed results. MiL usually enjoys it, while I don't think my sister-in-law does. Luckily, these cheesecake brownies went over well with everyone (even hubby). I had originally planned to make the Cinnamon Cheesecake Blondies I made oh so long ago, but when hubby plaintively requested them with no cinnamon, I decided to change direction a bit. A cheesecake blondie doesn't sound nearly as good as a cheesecake brownie. I've made Cookies & Cream Brownies before, which are nearly the same (plus the addition of smashed up oreos) but I thought I'd go for something simpler. And I didn't have any oreos. Being lazy, I found a recipe online that had ingredients in my pantry. It was a bit of a challenge as I'm out of bakers' chocolate, but I found this one that only calls for cocoa powder. Yay!


Cheesecake Brownies
(original recipe)
brownie

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• ½ cup cocoa
• ½ tsp salt

cheesecake

• 8 oz (1 package) cream cheese, softened
• between 1/4 and 1/3 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you'd like it
  
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 350F and grease an 8x8 baking pan.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Once the butter is fully melted, remove from the heat and add the sugar, vanilla, and eggs. It helps if you've combined these ingredients already and pour the butter into them. Blend together.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well. Pour into the prepared pan.

Next, prepare the cheesecake layer. Beat the cream cheese and sugar together, then add the egg and beat until creamy. Drop dollops on top of the brownie batter, then swirl using a knife.

Bake 50-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.