Chocolate and raspberry cheesecake brownies

Chocolate and raspberry cheesecake brownies with a glass of Wisniowka

This weekend I went home for Bonfire Night and to eat as much as humanly possible apparently. We arrived late on Thursday night after a long drive down from London to be welcomed with a home-made pasty each. My mum then proceeded to roll out home-made ginger cake, Welsh pancakes and butternut squash soup on Friday, and we spent yesterday in Fowey eating fish and chips on the quayside.

Inevitably, whenever I come home to relax I always end up baking, so yesterday evening I had a go at mum’s treacle toffee – made every year when we were small for Bonfire Night. Still not content with the amount of sweet stuff in the house, I then woke up this morning and baked Felicity Hood’s chocolate and raspberry cheesecake brownies.

The recipe is taken from Green & Black’s new cookery book, “Ultimate Chocolate Recipes: The New Collection”, which was released last month. I’ve been meaning to make them ever since I got the book, partly because when I was younger one of my favourite treats was a chocolate cheesecake brownie made by Marks & Spencer. I decided the best time to have a go at it would be at home where I can use our chickens’ eggs  (this recipe calls for 7!). Here are some pictures of the method. We’re eating it today after a roast beef dinner, so I’ll give you an update on the flavour once we’ve polished some off.

I followed Felicity’s instructions to the letter. The only adjustment I found I had to make was the tin size. Her recipe calls for a 20cm square brownie tin, but the one I had was just too small to fit all the mixture – it could have just been too shallow. Anyway, I switched to a 23cm cake tin, which you’ll see in the pictures below.

Ingredients for the brownie mix:

280g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
170g dark (70% cocoa solids) chocolate
350g unrefined golden caster sugar
70g plain flour
pinch of salt
5 medium free range eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
100g white chocolate – broken into small pieces

Ingredients for the cheesecake mix:

350g cream cheese
75g unrefined golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 medium free range eggs
170g fresh raspberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade/gas mark 4. Grease and line a 23cm/9 inch cake or brownie tin

• Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Once melted and combined set aside to cool.

 

Melted butter and chocolate

• Combine the sugar, flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, pour over the cooled chocolate and mix until smooth.

Beautiful golden eggs from the farm

• Beat the five eggs separately then add to the mixing bowl, along with the white chocolate and vanilla extract.

G&B's white chocolate

White chocolate chunks and chocolatey, velvety mix

• Blend together until you create a shiny chocolate brownie mixture then pour into the tin.
• Now make the cheesecake mixture. Whisk the cream cheese, vanilla extract, sugar and eggs until creamy.

Whisked cheesecake mixture

• Pour the cheesecake mixture evenly over the brownie layer .
• Use a fork to drag the cheesecake mix through the brownie mix to create a marbled effect. Drop the raspberrries in, trying to make sure they are pushed fully in.

Cheesecake and brownie mixture with raspberries ready for stirring

• Bake for about 35-40 minutes until the brownies are set, but have a slight wobble. (I found they took much longer in our oven, but it is quite a cool oven. Author of the book, Micah’s tip is to buy an oven thermometer, which would be the best way of gauging how long to give it.)
• Leave to cool in the tin, covered with foil.

07 Nov This entry was published on November 7, 2010 at 2:52 pm. It’s filed under Recipes and tagged brownies, cheesecake, chocolate, Cornwall, Green & Black's, raspberries. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.