Marble Cream Cheese Brownies

William requested these from our Magnolia Bakery cookbook, and they turned out pretty good. Auntie thought the marbling looked like leaves, so I thought it would be good to document the recipe here incase I get invited somewhere and want to bring a fall/Autumn inspired dessert. 

In the original recipe, it tells you to make stripes with the cream cheese filling on the top and the bottom of the brownie, which didn't seem to make all that much difference to the final product, and most people didn't even notice that there was cream cheese marbling on the bottom, plus the recipe seemed to make twice as much cream cheese filling as you needed, so next time I think I would forgo the bottom stripes and maybe make only half as much filling, so that is how I will document the filling ingredients below (as a half recipe compared to the original).

Marble Cream Cheese Brownies

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer:

• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (225g/8oz)
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup flour (68g/2.4oz)
• 2 Tbl unsweetened dark cocoa powder, sifted (22g/3oz)
• 4 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups sugar (350g/12.4oz)
• 4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt

For Cream Cheese Layer:

• 3 oz. softened cream cheese
• 1/8 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 of a beaten egg (about 2 Tbl egg whites or liquid eggs)
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbl sour cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray and then line with parchment paper, leaving sides of paper hanging over the outside of the pan for easy removal after baking.
2. Place the chocolate chips and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and heat at 15-30 second intervals until completely melted, stirring between intervals until fully combined. Set aside and cool to room temperature.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour and cocoa.
4. In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs and sugar together on medium speed for 4 minutes until thick. Add the cooled chocolate and butter mixture, vanilla, and salt and mix on medium speed until combined, scraping down bowl as needed. Remove bowl from mixer stand and fold in flour mixture just until combine or a few tiny streaks of flour remain. Do not over mix.
5. Pour prepared batter into your prepared 9x13 pan and spread out evenly.
6. In a medium bowl, use a handheld mixer to beat together your cream cheese, sugar, salt, and vanilla on medium speed for about 3 minutes until light, fluffy and combined, scaping down bowl as needed. Add your egg, lemon juice and sour cream, mixing on medium for about 1 minute until combined, scraping down bowl as needed.
7. Place the cream cheese mixture into a piping bag and cut off the tip of the bag. Pipe even, straight lines of the cream cheese mixture the long way on the top of your brownie batter, in about 7 or 8 lines.
8. With a small knife (I used our ice pick), pull your knife through the brownie batter going the short way (opposite of the cream cheese lines) about every inch or so up the pan, alternating direction of each knife pull, to create the marbled or leaf pattern.
9. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake-tester inserted into the center comes out with thick. moist crumbs or is mostly clean. Let cool completely in the pan on a cooking rack, then refrigerate until firm, 2 to 3 hours.
10. Remove brownies by lifting the side of the parchment and cut brownies into your desired size. Keep refrigerated.