Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

Lisa's swim team is AMAZING!!! Shout-out to the top synchro team in the province!

Our resident swimmer is also obviously a baker extraordinaire and had made these brownies once before. At the request of a teammate celebrating her sweet sixteen, Lisa decided to make them again. Except a stellar showing in the provincial duet competition kept her out a little late the night before the big birthday. Amy jumped in and started things off. Team effort!

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

This recipe (slightly modified) came from one of our new favorite cookbooks: "The Ultimate Cookie Book" from the Better Homes and Gardens series.

1 cup chocolate chips --> original recipe called for a mix of unsweetened and semisweet... we used all semisweet

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 1/4 cup sugar

4 eggs

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 package (8 oz = 250 g) cream cheese

2/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups raspberries --> frozen worked for us, but fresh is probably better

1 tablespoon sugar

• In small pot, melt together chocolate and butter over low heat. Stir gently, until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool (we're a little impatient and stuck the pot in the freezer to speed things up).
• Whisk 1 1/4 cups sugar and 3 of the 4 eggs (one at a time) into the melted chocolate. Stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla and salt, then add flour and stir until just combined.
• Grease and flour 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Spread chocolate batter into pan and set aside.
• In medium bowl, mix together cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar (it helps to soften the cream cheese... let it warm up a bit). Beat in lemon juice, the last egg, and a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Beat in the flour.
• Scoop cheesecake batter into pan, spreading evenly over the chocolate layer. Top with raspberries. Sprinkle with sugar.
• Bake for 35 minutes in a pre-heated over at 350 F. Remove from oven when top is puffed and edges start to turn golden brown. Cool in pan. Cover and chill for 6 hours. Cut into bars.
• Store in refrigerator.

Check out that chocolate!

Make sure the greased pan is coated in flour...

You want to be able to remove the brownies from the pan!

The layers come together...

A field of frozen raspberries.

Enjoy!

Zucchini Brownies

Raised eyebrows. A stifled laugh. Finally vocalized: "you're putting a green vegetable into a chocolate dessert?"

It's zucchini season. Anyone who has a zucchini plant in their backyard knows that you don't get just one or two vegetables off of a plant - you get an armload. You can only eat so many grilled zucchini side dishes, and zucchini parmesan starts to get old fast too... Someone with an abundance of zucchini was probably trying to think of places to hide the green squash and figured that dark, delicious (?) chocolate brownies might provide a good disguise. 

Side note, before your sweet tooth is visits heaven: zucchinis are a pretty good food to squeeze into your day. A quick google search revealed that this fruit (we're insisting on calling it a vegetable) is a good source of vitamin C, and is high in folate, potassium, manganese, and vitamin A. 

Healthy brownies?... that might be a stretch. 

We found the recipe on AllRecipes.

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1  1/2 cups white sugar

2 teasons vanilla extract

MIX! 

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1  1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

MIX!

2 cups shredded zucchini

FOLD! 

(The recipe also calls for walnuts, but we left those out. We searched cupboards high and low, but we just didn't have any.)

Press the batter into a greased and floured 9x13 pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes. 

After folding the zucchini into the chocolate-y batter, we realized we probably should have peeled the zucchini: there were dark green splotches throughout the otherwise brown concoction. Too late! 

Good news: apparently the rind is loaded with beta-carotene. 

The green seemed to be less noticeable after baking anyway.

Now for the icing. This stuff was weird. 

1/4 cup margarine

6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups confectioner's sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the margarine and cocoa powder together, set aside to cool.

Blend the sugar, milk, and vanilla (...love vanilla). Stir it into the cocoa mixture. 

Sounds simple - but - this is the weirdest icing we've ever seen. It wasn't a liquid - it was crumbly! Once the brownies cooled, we literally had to press the icing on. Much to our surprise, it worked!