Brownie Cheesecake

My best-friend, Jess, is surprisingly quite fussy with her food. I assumed she was very much like me, where I am willing to eat almost anything (lol) but I've learned in the past few months that there's a lot of things I like, that she can't stand! I am now keeping a list of things she doesn't like, so that I can avoid making them for her in the future.

Food Jess Doesn't Like:

• Duck
• Peanut butter
• Any cake that isn't chocolate or cheese (she can take banana bread)
• Onions

Trust me, that list is going to grow. I found out a couple of these things after I'd baked her things, and so... I am now determined to give her dessert that she will actually eat and enjoy for once!

I planned on baking her a banana brownie cheesecake last weekend, and I did, but I haven't taken pictures of those yet. In any case, I also baked a plain chocolate brownie with cheesecake topping (I think I can do without the banana in my brownies).

The recipe is simply a combination of my basic brownies, and basic cheesecake:

Brownies

• 4 oz dark, unsweetened cooking chocolate
• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• dash of vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt

Cheesecake topping

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup of sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C and prepare your pans by lightly greasing only the bottom
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double-boiler (heat-proof bowl a pot of water), stir constantly so it doesn't burn
3. In a medium sized bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt together
4. Once the chocolate and butter is smooth, remove from heat and transfer to a large mixing bowl
5. Add in the sugar and vanilla, and whisk until nicely combined
6. Stir in the eggs, one at a time and whisk well after each addition
7. Add the flour mixture and mix until well integrated and the brownie mixture is smooth
8. Pour into prepared pan (I used a 9 x 6 pan for this batch)
9. In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese, egg and sugar. Once fully mixed and smooth, pour the mix over the brownie mix in dollops and swirl with a butter knife (I didn't swirl very well, so it didn't turn out quite as nice)
10. Bake at 180 C for 30 minutes, or until the sides begin to pull from the pan (I like to leave it in a little longer cos I prefer my brownies at a good cake-y texture)

All I can say is, I ended up with a rather thin layer of cream cheese topping, probably due to the fact that my pan was far too large for the amount. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Enjoy!

x Nabiya