Cheesecake Brownies

More shindig food, so you’ll have to forgive my less than ideal photos – I’ve been doing a lot of night baking and then shoving everything whole into the freezer, so I can’t get the best pictures. So needless to say, these freeze really well. If you want better photos, go to Yammie’s Noshery, which is where I got the recipe.

Butter a 9″ x 13″ baking dish and line it with parchment paper.

Start with 1 cup butter and 2 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and melt those together in a pot until smooth and bubbly.

Let that cool for at least 10 minutes and preheat your oven to 350°F.

While that’s chilling out, whisk together 1 1/4 cups cocoa, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 1/2 cups flour. Set that aside for a wee spell.

In another bowl, whisk together 8oz softened cream cheese (remember that the warmer it is, the less lumpy it will be), 1/3 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 egg. You may want the hand mixer for this job. Set THAT aside.

Grab another bowl (so many bowls) and whisk together 1 teaspoon vanilla and 4 eggs.

Tip in your butter-sugar goo and whisk it until it’s glossy.

Then tip all that into your flour-cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

THEN dump in 2 cups chocolate chips and mix those in.

Smooth all your cocoa batter into the pan. Try your best to dig little troughs down the length of the pan and fill those with the cream cheese batter. As you can see, my best is not the best. My batter was more fluid I think than was intended so the troughs kept filling in. It was like trying to build a sandcastle in a rising tide.

Then grab a butter knife and cut into the batter, dragging the knife perpendicular to the troughs.

I hope yours looks better than this.

Bake for 25-35 minutes (25 for gooey, 35 for non-gooey; mine was in-between) and let cool completely before cutting into bars.

I can’t wait to eat one of these puppies on Saturday!