Cheesecake brownies

Last week I was in a restaurant and the waitress named the special dessert of the day; brownie cheesecake. Unfortunately, the main dish left me too full to sample some, but I was determined to find a recipe and make them myself. Now I searched for "brownie cheesecake", but most hits came up as "cheesecake brownies". Potehto, potahto, I thought, and I picked the recipe of which I could find the most ingredients (American recipes sometimes call for the most crazy things... canola oil, anyone?) and did not start with "Take a box of brownie mix. Follow the instructions on the package...". Yet again, I ended up at the BBC.

Marbling in the bowl.

Now this recipe calls for 100 ml of strong espresso, which I did not use (because 4 of the 5 people who would eat it don't like coffee), but I put in some water instead (I know, seems pointless, but I think it needed the moisture. I thought about adding chocolate milk, but it seemed a bit pointless if you've already used 225 g of chocolate). Also, they ask for "cream cheese", which is a problem, because in Dutch we have "roomkaas" and "kwark", which can both be translated as "cream cheese". In this case I opted for the "kwark", but I think either one will do the trick. Other than that, I just followed the recipe.
And I think it worked kinda well.

I have no patience to wait until it has cooled completely; this is what it looks like!

They tasted great. The cheesecake is moist and soft, while the brownies are chocolaty and melt in your moth. It doesn't really matter how well you mix the two, as you'll always end up with a mouth full of both, and it's the combination that really makes this work.

Several words of warning are in order for this one;
- As you have probably already seen, it will create a LOT of dishes. And I mean really a lot. And they're gonna be hard to clean, because the chocolate will have become solid again by the time you get to it, so yeah... This may be a good reason why you should use brownie mix straight from the package, it will give you one less bowl to wash, and the most annoying bowl at that.
- Also, this recipe includes pouring a hot liquid into an egg mixture. If you've never before realised why this is one of the scariest things a baker can do, be happy, and ignore the following lines. If you have realised this, you know what I'm talking about. The mixture shouldn't be too hot, or your eggs will immediately curdle or become an omelet, but it also shouldn't be to cold, or it won't combine properly. I erred on the side of caution on this one, so my brownie mixture turned out veeeery sticky and uncooperative. Which is usually good in brownies, because it means they will be chewy, but not in this case, as I couldn't create a proper marbling effect, because the brownie mixture was so heavy it wouldn't combine with the cream cheese mixture. Oh well...
- They say to use a 20x20 cm tin, I used a 25x25 cm tin, and still the mixture almost rose over the top in the oven. May be that I am just that awesome a whisker, but I don't think so.
- Finally, these things contain about 50.000 calories, so only make them if you have people coming over (3, in our case) who will quickly eat all of them and make sure you will not be the one stuffing them into your mouth at 10 in the morning!