Brownies are Better with a Little Cheese

In just over a week, I am hosting a concert for David Berkeley. Hopefully, it will be a fun-filled evening with music and delicious food. But, since the concert is going to be on a weekday, I must plan ahead. And since Deb recently describe a reason why she too had a need to cook in advance, I decided to try her apparently delicious recipe for cheesecake brownies.

Or, at least I planned to follow her recipe. But once again, I concluded that Deb uses too much butter. So, I shopped around for some other recipes and made some modifications. Even with 25% less butter and reduced fat cream cheese, the end product is delicious. (Probably because it still has enough fat to cause a coronary.)

When I looked at the brownie recipe on Smitten Kitchen, I decided (1) I needed to double the recipe and (2) that would require 2 sticks of butter, which is outrageous. I also noticed that my mom's brownie recipe called for basically the same ingredients. Turns out, the exact same ingredients in nearly the same proportions.


So, I followed my mom's brownie instructions and then topped it with a double dose of Deb's cream cheese topping. I had one package of regular fat cream cheese and one package of 1/3 fat, so that's what I used, and it was delicious. I also decided to skip the chocolate chips - seemed like overkill.

Deb's freezing-then-cutting tip was key, and something I think I'll do from now on with brownies (even though I have recently made disparaging remarks about putting a whole slab of brownies in the freezer). I cut them into bite sized brownies so that people can have more, and so that more people can have some.

Here are the brownie ingredients:
- 6 oz. Unsweetened chocolate
- 1 1/2 sticks butter
- 6 eggs
- 2 3/4 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups flour

After that, I followed SK pretty much to the letter. Hopefully they'll be a hit. Now I just need some more ideas for things to make!