Red Velvet Brownie Bites

I cannot tell a lie.

These were not intended to be Red Velvet Brownie Bites.

They were supposed to be regular brownies. Well, not really regular. They were supposed to be Red Velvet Swirl Brownies. Except, as I often do, I went and ruined it with my silliness. For some reason, I looked at the amount of brownie batter in my bowl and decided that 8oz of cream cheese would be too much for that much brownie batter and so I halved the cheesecake layer. Talk about silly!

And then I went and mis-read the pan size (I was reading too many recipes at the same time!) and ended up with really thin, flat brownies. So, I went with the flow, cut them into bite-size squares (well, they were 2 bites sized), and we enjoyed them! Easy to make, super-moist, and really delicious, this crowd-pleaser is a hit!

While the red velvet layer tasted nice, it was the cream cheese layer that was really yummy! Overall, it was like a brownie+cheesecake combination and it really worked! The recipe below has the correct proportions, and not the ones I used. If you want to intentionally make my mistake, or if you don't have enough cream cheese lying around, go ahead and halve the ingredients for the cream cheese layer. But I'd rather you didn't.

Red Velvet Swirl Brownies

Adapted from Food Network

Ingredients

Brownie Batter

1/2 cup salted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp red food coloring

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 eggs

3/4 cup flour

Cream Cheese Batter

8oz cream cheese

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/8 tsp vanilla

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 200.

2. In a large saucepan, melt the butter on low heat, being careful not to burn the butter. (Unless you want burnt butter brownies. Hmmmm... something to think about...)

3. Stir in the sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder and vinegar, stirring well after each addition.

4. Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and add to the butter mixture.

5. Add the flour, and stir lightly till combined.

6. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8x8 baking tin.

7. In a medium bowl, whisk cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth and light.

8. Drop teaspoons full of the cream cheese mixture over the top of the brownie batter.

9. Using the tip of knife or a skewer, swirl the cream cheese mixture over the top of the brownie batter until you are satisfied with the swirl pattern.

10. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Allow it to cool completely before slicing. The taste of the red velvet brownie layer and the cream cheese layer together is absolutely divine. The original recipe can be found here.

I am so happy that we're on our Red Velvet adventure! Did you see yesterday's post? A Valentine's Day breakfast idea! Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Pancakes! I look forward to sharing all the other recipes with you. 2 down, 3 to go! :) See you tomorrow!

Oh, and if you haven't already, you must see what Jill Colonna made for my birthday! Go check out my birthday post!