Best of the Best

This week, my baking challenge was to combine some of my friend's favourite treats into one ultimate dessert. She isn't a fan of cake, but she does like cheesecake and brownies - so I needed to find a way to combine them.

 

After a bit of searching on the Internet, I found a recipe for Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake from one of my regular cooking blogs, Smitten Kitchen. The task seemed a little daunting - making brownies, a chocolate crumb crust and cheesecake? This was going to take all week!

So I started on Tuesday making the brownies. I used my fall-back brownie recipe that makes deliciously fudgey brownies. All the ingredients are just thrown in one bowl so that made step 1 a little easier.

Wednesday was cheesecake day. I decided to modify the crust recipe from Smitten Kitchen, because I was making mini-cheesecakes and in the past my crusts have been very soggy. The cheesecake recipe was very basic - just 4 ingredients - so I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. However, it would make my life easier, so I decided to give it a try!

Here are the recipes I used:

Fudgey Brownies
Makes one 9x9 pan of brownies

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x9 baking dish.               
2. Combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each, until thoroughly blended.               
3. Sift together the flour, and cocoa powder. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture until blended. Stir in the chocolate morsels. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking dish.
4. Bake in preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, approximately 25 minutes. Remove, and cool pan on wire rack before cutting.

Chocolate Cookie Crust
Makes 12 mini cheesecake crusts with extra

3/4 cups chocolate cookie crumbs
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

Directions

1. Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom of mini cheesecake pan

Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake
1.5 packages cream cheese, softened

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

Brownie - cut into approximately 1/2 inch cubes (from recipe above)

 

Directions

1. Make crumb crust as directed above. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. To make filling: Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla and sugar, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.
3. Place brownie cubes on top of the cookie crust and line the mini cheesecake wells with parchment paper. This prevents the cheesecake from sticking to the sides. Pour in cheesecake filling.
4. Put cheesecake pan in a bain marie (i.e. in a larger pan with boiling water) and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes or until the whole cheesecake jiggles as "one".

These were fun little treats that everyone enjoyed at the event I brought them to. The cheesecake has a very creamy texture, which is different than what I'm used to (I like a "drier" cheesecake), but it is still very good - especially for only 4 ingredients! The crusts were a little crumbly, but at least they weren't soaked in butter this time! I don't know if I'll ever get the crusts right!

As individual recipes, these are all amazing, and as a combo - they are greater than the sum of their parts!