Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

This recipe comes to you courtesy of the random crap in my pantry.

I somehow ended up with a bunch of random chocolate, some cream cheese and an unnecessary amount of creamy peanut butter in my cupboard.  We don't eat creamy peanut butter in my house - both CA and I are crunchy people - so the only thing to do with creamy PB is to bake with it. 

I was really craving brownies and peanut butter cheesecake sounded pretty good too so I thought I'd swirl the two together.

I looked through my cookbooks and found a couple of recipes for peanut butter brownies and a couple more for cheesecake brownies but none for the combo so I made my own combo... and it actually worked!

The brownies are pretty basic - butter, chocolate, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour and chocolate chips (because you need more chocolate).  It's all made in one pot too which makes clean up a lot easier.

There's nothing crazy about the cheesecake party either - it's got exactly what you'd expect peanut butter cheesecake to have in it - cream cheese, peanut butter, powdered sugar, regular sugar, vanilla, eggs and salt.  I didn't really have a PB cheesecake recipe so follow so I used a regular cheesecake recipe and subbed some of the cream cheese for peanut butter... and then crossed my fingers

Those two get swirled together in a pan and baked up.

I had my doubts because not everything I randomly make up works out so well.  For example, the first batch of pretzel, PB, marshmallow brownies.

These turned out pretty well... not perfect, but good.  They were super rich which is what I liked about them.  Make sure to cut them into small pieces or you'll die in a rich, brownie induced coma.  The cheesecake part wasn't amazing but I still liked it.  CA said they tasted too eggy which I don't really agree with.  My coworkers really liked them.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

Ingredients

For the Brownies
3/4 cup Butter
4 oz. Unsweetened Chocolate
2 cups Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 cup Flour
1/2 cup Chocolate Chips

For the PB Cheesecake
8 oz. Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
1/4 cup Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Eggs
1/8 tsp Salt

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 13x9 inch pan with aluminum foil and spray the foil with non-stick spray.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate together.  Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugar.  Add the eggs and vanilla and stir until thoroughly incorporated.  Add the flour and stir until incorporated.  Finally stir in the chocolate chips.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment mix together the cream cheese and peanut butter until uniformly mixed.  Add both sugars and mix on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add the vanilla, eggs and salt and mix until just combined.

Add half the brownie batter to the pan and spread it evenly with an offset spatula.  Dollop half of the cheesecake mixture on top.  Dollop the remaining brownie batter on top of them, followed by the remaining cheesecake mixture.  Use a knife to swirl the two batters together.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until just set.  Cool completely before cutting into squares (They actually taste really good straight out of the refrigerator).

Enjoy!
Julie