The ‘Better Than Everything’ Brownies

I am so sorry that I haven’t posted in so long, I feel terrible. I have been away on a month long whirlwind trip of America, which was so very amazing. I had the best time, and I am kind of sad to be back now, getting into the swing of normal routine and heading back to work. However, I guess you have to come back to normal life so that when you do go away it makes it that much more amazing. And I can start planning the next one to try and ease the crippling travel depression I feel looming.

Anyway, before I left I was aiming to write a post about these brownies but it just didn’t end up happening unfortunately. But better late than never, because I can assure you that these brownies are well worth the wait! I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest a few years ago, in fact they were one of my very first pins. I made them for my friends on Valentines day of 2012, and in 2015 I made these very same brownies for my work colleagues and my boyfriend.

These brownies are the best brownies I have ever eaten. Hands down. They are soft and gooey, rich and delicious. They are also super simple to make, but yield amazing results. If you are going to make anything from my blog, please make these brownies. You will not be disappointed, and neither will anyone you share them with (if you can give them up, you might want to eat the whole lot).

For this recipe, you basically make a brownie mix and a cheesecake mix, and put them together. Rather than using the brownie mix from the original recipe, I use a recipe, which has been in my family since my sister was quite small. Seriously, the only copy we have it on old, chocolate stained, Whinny the Pooh stationary. She got it off one of her friends, and it makes the best brownies I have ever eaten. In fact, the brownie recipe on its own is amazing, but adding cheesecake makes it out of this world. I am not sure if anyone realises how special it is that I am publishing this recipe, as it is a bit of a trade secret of my sisters. So use it carefully, and enjoy!

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Better than Everything Brownies

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

20 mins

Total Time

35 mins

 

Course: Dessert

Servings: 16 Brownies

Author: Ella Eats

Ingredients

Brownie Batter

• 125 grams of butter
• 185 grams of Dark Chocolate – I usually use the whole block
• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
• 2 eggs slightly beaten
• 1 cup of plain flour – you can use a gluten free flour mix instead of plain flour and we have found that this works just as well.

Cheesecake Batter

• 225 grams of cream cheese – leave this out of the fridge to make it soft before using.
• 1/3 cup of caster sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract
• ½ cup of chocolate chips or raspberries depending on your preference (you can also leave these out. I’ve done milk, dark and white chocolate chips and all of them are good)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius, and put the wrack in the middle of the oven.
2. Get a nice square baking pan and line it with baking paper. The recipe recommends buttering the baking pan instead of this, but I find baking paper so much easier and less messy at the end.
3. Break the chocolate apart and cut up the butter, placing in a microwave safe bowl. Then melt this mixture in the microwave until soft. I usually do this in 30-second intervals, stirring occasionally to avoid burning the chocolate. You could also do this over a saucepan with water in it over the stove, if you want to get fancy. But I’ve done it in the microwave for years and never had an issue.
4. Take the bowl out of the microwave and stir in the sugar, eggs and essence.

5. Sift the flour into the bowl and voila! You have the most amazing brownie mix known to man. 

6. In another bowl, use a whisk to mix together all the ingredients for the cheesecake batter until smooth. Pretty simple.

7. Get your brownie batter and pour into the pan, smoothing out with a spatula so that its nice and even.

8. Next, pour the cheesecake batter over the top of the brownie mix. I then get a butter knife and swirl the cheesecake batter through the brownie mix so that it gets a cool swirled pattern on the top. Just use the knife to essentially pull the brownie mixture into the cheesecake mixture until you like how it looks.

9. I then usually get my topping and submerge the chocolate chips and/or raspberries into the mixture, leaving some on the top. I find putting them in the mixture makes it even better. You might need to reswirl the pattern to make it look pretty again, or you could do this before swirling, it just depends on how you feel. 

10. Cook the brownies for 30-35 minutes or until golden on the top. The mixture will be very gooey in its nature, and is always better when it comes out gooey and then is left to sit. So just watch the top and then leave it out for a bit until it firms up.
11. Cut into even pieces once cool (if you can wait)

And there you have it! A super simple recipe that yields wickedly delicious results! I highly recommend making these for loved ones to show them you care, if you are having a bad day and need something to make you feel better. But who am I kidding, you don’t really need an excuse to make these delicious brownies. Just do it!