These brownies are amazing. Brownie base topped with raspberry cheesecake and swirled with more chocolate and topped with fresh raspberries. Yum! Chocolate and raspberry is my favorite food combo at Valentine's Day. It's just perfect. I saw these brownies at Sally's Baking Addiction and had to try them.
Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies
Ingredients:
1 box brownie mix
Eggs, oil, and water
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
¼ cup sugar
⅓ cup seedless raspberry jam
1 egg yolk
Red food coloring, optional
12 fresh raspberries
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Coat an 11x7” baking dish with baking spray.
Prepare brownie mix as directed on box, adding eggs, oil, and water. Pour brownie batter into the prepared baking dish, leaving 2 tbsp or so of brownie mix in the bowl. Set aside.
In another bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar, raspberry jam, and egg yolk. Mix until there are no cream cheese lumps (it helps to have the jam and egg at room temperature before mixing). If desired, add a couple of drops of red food coloring.
Pour cream cheese mixture over the brownie batter in the baking dish. Add a tiny bit of water to the remaining brownie batter in the bowl to make it a drizzling consistency. Drizzle the batter on top of the cheesecake mixture in horizontal stripes. Run a knife through it vertically one way, then the other way in between to create the swirl pattern. Place raspberries so that one will be in the center of each piece when cut into 12 pieces.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Cover pan with foil and bake an additional 25 minutes, or until middle is slightly loose but not jiggly. Remove from oven, uncover, and let cool completely. Cut into squares, then refrigerate until ready to serve.
Refrigerate any leftovers.
Makes 12 brownies.
These are really pretty easy to make. The original recipe called for making the brownie part from scratch. I'm sure it's really good, probably better than the mix, but I am too lazy for that. They are awesome with the mix. I used a Ghiradelli mix that has chocolate chunks in it. Yum. If you are inspired to make the brownie part from scratch, click over to get Sally's recipe.
I could not achieve the beautiful light pink color that Sally got. The first time I made them I forgot the part about covering them with foil. They came out tasting good, but they were hardly pink at all. The egg yolk in the cheesecake part will make them brown if you leave them uncovered. They are a bit prettier if you cover them.
Here are a few pics of the assembly process:
I assume you have all seen brownie batter in a pan, so I skipped that pic. :) Here is the cheesecake layer spread out over the brownie batter. I was too lazy to get out my hand mixer, so I mixed it up by hand. I had the cream cheese nice and soft and creamy, but when I added the cold raspberry jam and egg yolk, it created lumps. If you think about it, get the jam and egg out early so they are room temp before mixing with the cream cheese. If you don't think about (like I didn't), don't worry about it. The white lumps will not be noticeable in the finished product.
Thin out a little bit of brownie batter and drizzle it horizontally only on the cheesecake layer.
Drag a knife through the other way, three times in the same direction.
Then drag the knife the opposite direction in between to make the pretty swirls.
Place the raspberries on. You can do more raspberries if you like. I think they look pretty with one in the center of each piece.
Out of the oven. These are not the kind of brownies you eat warm from the oven. They are best served chilled, because of the cheesecake layer. I do recommend cutting them before refrigerating though, because it's difficult to cut through cold brownies, especially if they have chocolate chunks in them like mine did. I powered through, though!
Now I have to show you the Valentines I made for my daughters' to exchange at school. I am not very crafty at all, so every year I scour Pinterest for something cute, but not too difficult or involved.
The Fishbowl for Eva. All you need to make this is on Backless Shirt. It was super duper easy. One disclaimer though, that wasn't mentioned on Backless Shirt: The goldfish will leave greasy marks on the cardstock. I didn't realize this until I had them all done and ready to go the next morning. It was too late to do anything about it, so I gave them out that way. I would suggest either laminating the cardstock, or using Swedish fish instead.
For Lena I did the Love Bug. The instructions are found at The NY Melrose Family. These were a little bit more involved, but still pretty easy. One thing I will warn you about: Do not think you are smarter than the instructions and try to use any other glue besides hot glue for this. First I got some glue at the dollar store. Bad idea. Then I thought super glue would do the trick. I tried two different kinds, spent an hour trying to get the googly eyes and noses to stick, glued my fingers together several times, and could not even get one good one. I gave up on the super glue and broke out the glue gun. Instant success. Don't worry; the hot glue will not melt the fruit cup.
They were a big hit at school.
I'm planning a fun Valentine's Day breakfast and lunch for my little sweeties. Red velvet pancake muffins, and heart-shaped sunny-side-up eggs for breakfast, and heart-shaped lunchables and fruit kabobs for lunch. Dinner will be with my in-laws because my sweetie is taking me to see Alton Brown Live! tomorrow night! Can't wait!
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Wonderful dessert! Great combination of textures and flavors! Perfect for Valentine's Day, no doubt! Great dessert!
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