Recipe: Cream Cheese Marbled Chocolate Brownies (Martha Stewart)

My family loves chocolate brownies very much. Brownies, however as we all know, is high in sugar content so we only have this as an occasional treat. Two very good brownie recipes that I usually use are Jamie Oliver's and Delia Smith's, which are plain chocolate ones with walnuts.

Martha Stewart's website has over 180 results for brownies alone, one that caught my eye was her recipe for cream cheese brownies. I love the pretty marble effects on the brownies. The brownies were moist, slightly crisp on top and the cream cheese adds a nice richness to it. However, chocolate is still the more prevalent flavour compared to the cream cheese. I gave some of these away as a gift to my relatives - one of them called me up the same night and asked when I was going to make her more. ;)

Cream cheese marbled chocolate brownies

The original recipe calls for a 9-inch square pan, but I used a 8-inch one since that's the one I have. Cooking time was 53 minutes for mine. Usually with the other two recipes, I bake the brownie for about 30 minutes, but this one had slightly more volume, hence I allowed it to bake to 45 minutes before I tested with a skewer to see if it was cooked.

As with many Martha Stewart recipes, the sugar content is quite high, I decided to reduce it from 1 1/2 cups (as asked for in original recipe) to 1 1/4 cups.

Looking pretty from all angles

This is a nice change from our usual brownies, a little more work though since there is the cream cheese mixture/layer involved. But it is definitely more pleasing to the eye and makes a lovely gift.

Marbled Cream Cheese Chocolate Brownies
Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 50-60 minutes
Makes 16 (one 8x8 inch)

Ingredients
10 tbsp (141g) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz (220g) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
4 oz (110g) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
4 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350°F / 175°C (no fan). Brush a 8-inch square baking pan with butter. Line bottom and two sides with a strip of baking paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on the two sides. Butter paper, and set pan aside.

2. In a small bowl, sift 1 cup flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; mix well and set aside.

3. Place 8 tablespoons butter and chocolate in a large heat-proof bowl set over (not in) a saucepan of gently simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth and melted, this will take about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove bowl from pan, then add 1 cup sugar and mix to combine. Add 3 eggs, and mix to combine. Add flour and cocoa mixture; mix just until moistened (as in all the flour is mixed into the chocolate-butter mixture, remember not to overmix).

4. Prepare the cream-cheese mixture. Using an electric mixer, whisk cream cheese with 2 tablespoons room-temperature butter until smooth. Whisk in 1/4 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour. 

5. Alternately spoon chocolate batter and cream-cheese mixture into prepared baking pan. Finally, using the tip of a paring knife, swirl to marble.

Swirl with the tip of a knife

6. Place in preheated oven and bake until a skewer/toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, this will take about 50 to 60 minutes (mine was ready in 53 minutes). The top (cream cheese) will be golden in colour.  

7. Cool in pan for 30 minutes. Using paper overhang, lift brownies out of pan; transfer to a rack to cool completely (still on paper). On a cutting board, using a dampened serrated knife, cut into 16 squares. You can serve the brownies with some vanilla ice-cream if you please, or it is good eaten on its own.

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I am submitting this to the "Cook Like Martha Stewart" bloghop which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Jocelyn of Riceball Eats. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from any Martha Stewart websites or cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of December 2012.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in December 2012 - please do not link older posts.Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Jocelyn of Riceball Eats and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

You can get the HTML code here: get the InLinkz code (Click on the link, copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML mode when you paste in the code)

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:

*This recipe was featured on Asian Food Channel's FB page on 18 December 2012.