Cheesecake-Swirled Brownies

I woke up early this morning for some reason. I think I was a little too excited about continuing Hunger Games because that book is all kinds of fantastic. I was looking through the pantry for some coffee when I noticed the pack of expensive cooking chocolate given to us a long time ago by an aunt. My Mum tells me it will expire soon so she urges me to get rid of them, so I thought I'd go on ahead and use them. There's no point in wasting fine dark cooking chocolate, yeah?

I actually accidentally dropped some melted chocolate into my cream cheese mixture (insert sad face here) so my marbling doesn't particularly look as nice as I would've wanted. As you can see in the above photo, the marbling is almost non-existent. Sometimes these things happen and one can only sigh. But in all honesty I wanted to slap myself for doing something avoidable.

Cheesecake-Swirled Brownies

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients for brownie batter:
1/2 cup (4 oz or 1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
85g (3 oz) unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tspn. pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Procedure for the brownie batter:
Preheat oven at 350F, making sure the oven rack is set at the middle of the oven. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and set aside.

Heat butter and chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl floating over simmering water. Make sure the heat is low to moderate so as the chocolate will melt more gently. Occasionally stir or whisk the misture until fully melted.

Remove from the heat and immediately whisk in sugar, eggs, vanilla and that pinch of salt until well combined. Whisk in the flour until just combined, careful not to overmix. The batter should be kind of gooey and thick. Pour the batter into the baking pan and spread.

Ingredients for the cheesecake batter:
8 oz cream cheese, well-softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 tspn. pure vanilla extract

*1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Procedure:
Whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. The chocolate chips can be added into the cheesecake batter, but I would recommend topping them later on after marbling.


Dollop the cheesecake batter over the brownie batter, then swirl with a butter knife by folding some of the cheesecake batter over the brownie batter in swirling motions. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the marbled batter if you haven't already put them into the cheesecake batter.

Bake the brownies until edges are slightly puffed and center is just set. I baked mine for 35 minutes more or less. It can be served warm, at room temperature or chilled.