Mint Chocolate Chip Cheese Cake Brownies

Happy St. Patricks day! This weekend we had several parties to attend and I wanted to bring something festive to share and I found this AMAZING recipe from one of Jenny's favorite blogs, Sally's Baking Addiction. (Who doesn't love brownies with green beer!?)  They were such a hit, that I made them again today so we could have our own little celebration. The chocolate and mint combination is perfect and creamy and the dessert still has sufficient fudginess to be considered a brownie.  Her post explains how she perfected this recipe and has great pictures so make sure to take a look.

Ingredients
Brownies
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mint Cheese Cake Layer
8 oz cream cheese softened/ at room temp
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4-1/2 teaspoon peppermint
3 drops green food coloring
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips


1. Prepare 11 x7 pan by spraying with oil. Set aside. In a double boiler, heat butter and chocolate stirring constantly until completely melted. Set aside and let cool to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Once chocolate mixture has cooled, stir in sugar. Next whisk eggs in one at a time until smooth. Whisk in vanilla.  Fold in flour and salt until just combined. Pour 3/4 mixture into the prepared baking dish. Set the remaining batter aside.

3. Beat cream cheese with a hand mixer or the whisk on a standing mixture. Add in sugar, egg yolk, peppermint and food coloring. Once all combined and at desired peppermint strength stir in the chocolate chips by hand.

4. Dollop spoonfulls of the cream cheese mixture on top of brownie mixture followed by the remaining amount of the brownie mixture. Lastly with a knife, create a swirl patter throughout brownie mixture and sprinkle chocolate chips on top if so desired.

5. Bake brownies for 40-50 minutes, until a tooth pick comes out clean. Cheers!

*** On Sally's website, she says to only bake them for 30-35 minutes. I found that it took much longer, closer to 50 minutes until a tooth pick would come out clean. They are still the perfect texture as well. Pay close attention after the 35 minute mark***