Kim Chi & Buttercup: Cheesecake Brownies

Thank goodness its over!!! My exams I mean. And university life. I'm gonna be graduating this semester so anyone know of any good job opportunity, please let me know.

And can somebody please tell me whats up with the humidity levels recently? It feels like a sauna outside on most days. And as Tash would gladly testify, that's never good for your makeup (right babe?). Annoyed, annoyed, annoyed.

Anyway. So the other day, me and Mel decided to bake some cheesecake brownies. If you haven't yet tried out these brownies, please do. They are awesome. Except for the part where they stuck to the aluminium foil. Usually I use baking paper but I thought I ran out of it so I decided to use aluminium foil instead. Bad idea. Just stick to baking paper next time. It'll save you a lot of trouble. Unless of course you like scraping off gooey brownie bits of aluminium foil. Which honestly wasn't that bad...

Here's a list of all the ingredients you'll need:

For the brownie part,
175g unsalted butter
350g white sugar
Pinch of salt (if you're using salted butter you can leave this out)
80g cocoa powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or milk)
3 eggs
80g all purpose flour

For the cheese part,
250g cream cheese (1 block)
2 egg yolks (not the whole egg!)
7 tablespoons white sugar

First, combine the butter, 350g sugar, salt and cocoa powder and set it over a double boiler. Let the ingredients melt and combine, stirring occasionally.

After about 5-10 minututes, it should look something like this: grainy, messy and coarse.

At this point, take it off the boiler and add in the milk or vanilla extract. Stir and allow the mixture to cool for about 10 minutes. Do not add in the eggs yet because the heat from the mixture will cook the eggs upon impact, causing it to curdle and ruin the entire batch.

Once the batter has cooled, add in the eggs, one at a time, stirring after each addition until well combined. The batter should be smooth and thick by now.

Now, sift in the flour and fold until the flour is completely incorporated. Set aside the entire batch.

In another clean bowl, cream the cheese, yolks and 7 tablespoons of sugar until smooth. It should look something like the image above.

Now comes the fun part. First, preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and position our oven rack in the middle. Then, pour the brownie batter into a lined 9 X 13 inch baking tray. Use baking paper, not aluminum foil as I did. This is because the brownie will stick to the aluminum after baking - not pretty. Trust me. Once all the brownie batter has been poured, slap on the cream cheese mixture on top (see pictures above) and swirl using a spatula/knife/whatever you have on had. Don't worry about being too neat or messy. Just swirl it and have fun!

After which,chuck it in the oven and bake for 35 - 40 minutes. Check for doneness using a toothpick inserted right into the center. It should feel moist but not dry.