Having exhausted both desirable avenues of brownie baking, viz. an average brownie and gluten-free brownies, it seemed  a good idea to combine two of my favourite desserts into one delicious amalgam. There are various methods by which one may achieve a cheesecake brownie, but this seems to be the best. For instance, some recipes call for a layer of cheesecake to be spread between two layers of brownie, in the same way as a sandwich is made. However, although this ensures that every bite contains an equal amount of cheesecake mixture, the flavour doesn’t achieve uniformity in any way at all, something which I desire in a cheesecake brownie. The other benefit of following this particular method is that one easily achieves a certain aesthetic pleasantness.

The ideal brownie has been discussed in a previous post, but we ought really to re-cap. The perfect brownie must be, at once, delicious, moist and dense and I can happily report that these achieve all three to an extremely pleasing degree. Out of the three brownie recipes I have now posted, I think these must be my favourite. One wonders whether they would benefit from a buttery biscuit base…

Cheesecake Swirled Brownies

Makes 10-16

Ingredients:

• 100g salted butter

• 40g cocoa powder, as dark as possible

• 50g dark chocolate

• 2 medium eggs

• 225g light muscovado sugar

• 50g self-raising flour

• 200g cream cheese

• 1 egg yolk

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease a suitable baking tray. Melt the butter gently in a pan on the stove, to this whisk in the cocoa powder. Once added, combine this with the chocolate in small chunks until it has all melted together. In a mixing bowl, while the chocolate is melting, whisk together the eggs and sugar using a hand mixer.

2. Add the egg mixture to the chocolate in the saucepan and mix thoroughly. Gently fold in the flour and pour the brownie batter into the lined baking tray.

3. Beat together the cream cheese and egg yolk. Dot this mixture around the brownie mixture and swirl in with a thin knife. Bake for 25 minutes and not a moment longer, they need to have a hard shell on the outside and be very gooey on the inside.

4. Leave the brownies to cool a little before turning them out. Pop them in the freezer for a little while before chopping.

Cost: This particular batch of brownies set me back a very reasonable £2.30. Since this makes 10-16 brownies I’d say it is a very good deal, since brownies have been known to set one back an outrageous amount.