chocolate cream cheese brownie cake...yummmmm

This weekend we celebrated my cousins graduation/my sisters birthday/my cousins birthday/fathers day for my uncle and pop-pop/probably something else too...there was lots of celebrating...so it called for lots of yummy desserts of course!  So I was assigned the birthday/fathers day cake...but I wanted to do something different and  I really wanted an excuse to use my semi-new "music to chocolate" cookbook...therefore obviously something chocolaty was gonna be made.  After much thinking I decided on the cream cheese brownies (although to be honest I experimented with the recipe...turned it more into a "cake")...so you will need...

6 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (although I used almond instead)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
3/4 cup self rising flour (if you don't have self rising flour regular flour will do just fine however for ever cup add a tsp of baking powder and a pinch of salt)
1/3 cup chopped nuts (of your choice...although I didn't use them this time)

However, I did not follow this recipe exactly...I doubled the butter and eggs but only added a tiny bit more sugar (I didn't want to use a full 2 cups cause thats waaayyyy to much)...I also cut back on the cocoa powder and added a bar of special dark chocolate to the butter as it was melting).  Basically I needed to make the brownies fit into a larger pan so I needed to "brownie" part to be bigger...however my experiment could have gone a little better (I personally thought they were a little dry, although it just made it taste more like a cake than a brownie).

First thing you want to do is cream together the cream cheese with 5 tsp of the sugar...once creamed add the vanilla extract (or in my case the almond extract)...

Once this is all blended together set aside and beat the eggs with the sugar until fluffy...while this is happening have the butter melting on the stove and once melted add the cocoa powder (and dark chocolate too, if you want)...once this is melted add the mixture to the fluffy egg mixture...

Fold in the flour and then pour into a greased...WITH BUTTER NOT SPRAY!!! (sorry, just had to interject that since I HATE cooking/baking spray...*coughpamcough* is the WORST for any bakeware/cookware...which I have probably ranted on about on here before, but just as a reminder stay far far away from that awful stuff.  Okay, back to the brownies...pour half of the batter into a butter greased 8x8 inch pan (or larger if you are doubling the recipe)...next spread on the cream cheese mixture...and then pour the rest of the batter on top...

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 35-45 minutes and then allow to cool.  While its cooling I whipped up a quick buttercream icing...literally just took a stick of room temperature butter, threw some powdered sugar and a splash of milk in a bowl and creamed it all together with a hand mixer...super easy!!  You can add some unsweetened cocoa powder to it if you want it to be chocolate.

Once cool spread the frosting on and your good to go!!

This recipe was adapted from "The Food and the Music of Chocolate"