Cheesecake Brownies

Sometimes you need a recipe in your arsenal that takes no time or effort to prepare. It bakes while you are paying bills or doing laundry or some other pesky task that always ends up falling on your day off. These brownies are one of those "recipes". I am not ashamed to use a box mix. Sometimes it's just really convenient. I know that I can mix together flour and cocoa powder and sugar and baking powder. But sometimes it's just easier to dump everything out of a box, and not worry about if I ran out of sugar and forgot to buy more again. For the box mix, I generally prefer Ghirardelli Double Chocolate. There are a few other vegan brownie mixes, but I don't remember them off the top of my head. I found Ghiradelli and never went back. I have used all sorts of egg replacers when using brownie mixes. While blending a can of black beans is still one of my favorites, I decided to try something else this time I went with yogurt. I had a little cup of coconut yogurt ready to explode, and I thought I would make use of it. It worked really well for me. Just use 1/4 cup for every egg you need to replace.


Cheesecake Brownies
one 9" pan

One batch brownie batter*
8 oz non-dairy cream cheese, I prefer Tofutti
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 Ener-G egg

Make your brownie batter* (As I already confessed I used the box mix combined with 1/3 cup water, 1/3 oil, and 1/4 cup coconut yogurt). Pour 3/4 of the batter into a 9" pan that is well greased or lined with parchment. Make your cheesecake filling by blending the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and Ener-G together until smooth. Dollop the cheesecake filling on top of the brownie. Then spoon remaining brownie batter on top. Swirl lightly with a chopstick or butter knife. Bake at 375 for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick comes out almost cleanly. You want these brownies to be slightly underbaked so they stay incredibly fudgey.


Do you have a store mix that you turn into something more amazing than it normally is? I'm always interesting in hearing how people modify things to better fit their needs. I'm all into shortcuts lately. Between work, getting hooked on a book series, and getting back into a solid gym routine it seems like there is less & less time to spend in the kitchen. I have been comilingp a list of other quick desserts that will satisfy my sweet tooth. Baklava is next!

Malted Pretzel Brownies

I have a confession to make. I am someone who loves box mix brownies. I have never made a brownie from scratch that I thought compared to the box mix version. I like my brownies directly in the middle of fudgy and cakey. I am just hard to please. Because of this, I don't make brownies very often. I had seen a photograph a few months ago of brownies baked into cookie cutters to give as gifts and thought it was genius. I set out to make a batch of brownies to fill all my favorite cookie cutters with. As I started pouring the batter in, I realized it was all leaking out from the bottom of the cutters. Even though they were flat on the cookie sheet, there was nothing to hold the batter in and keep the cutter from starting to float a little. I tried taping parchment around the bottom but it still didn't really work. I got one successful cookie cutter brownie, but it wasn't even cute enough that I felt compelled to take a picture of it. Lesson learned: if you can only find one picture of something on the whole wide interweb, there is probably a good reason that no one else has recreated it.
So as I quickly realized that I didn't need a whole batch of brownie batter to fill the cookie cutters, I decided to bake the rest like normal and work off another idea. In comes the the white chocolate pretzel brownie from Vegan Treats. I had two of these in Philadelphia last month, and I haven't been able to get them out of my mind since. They were just their standard brownie topped with buttercream with the lightest hint of cocoa, ganache, and the chocolate covered pretzel. I had already fallen in love with the malted buttercream I made, and thought it would work well with a salty pretzel. I was definitely correct. Eating a whole square of these brownies was a feat, but I did accomplish it. The rest were slowly nibbled away at in bits and pieces over several days.