Red Velvet + Cream Cheese = One Happy Camper!

Just let me start off by saying you may want to double this recipe and use a bigger pan. An 8" square of this delectable confection is NOT enough. If I'm going to put myself into a sugar coma, I'm going all the way, so next time it will be a 9" x 13" pan!

I found this recipe for *Red Velvet Cream Cheese Brownies* on Pinterest. It was pinned from The White Library. If you're not *pinning*, you're missing out. It's a fun way to save things you love and find GREAT ideas, recipes, you name it and you can find it on Pinterest! Here's a fair warning, though, it can be highly addictive!

It's a super easy recipe. I didn't have dark *baking* chocolate, so used Hershey's Special Dark candy bars. The recipe didn't specify baking chocolate, so it was just an assumption I made. Anyway, they came out delicious! Mine didn't look quite as dense as the those in the recipe. Mine were really kind of light and fluffy! REALLY good!

I also didn't have an 8" square *metal* pain, so used a round metal cake pan. Not sure that *metal* is crucial or not. So, without further ado, here is recipe...remember, BIG pan! :)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2-oz dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp red food coloring
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 8-oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 8 inch metal baking pan. Put a long piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, letting the parchment extend up two sides of the pan and overhang slightly on both ends. (This will make it easy to remove the bars from the pan after they have baked.) Butter the parchment.
2. In a small, heatproof bowl, melt butter and chocolate together. Stir until combined and very smooth. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and red food coloring. Add chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Add flour and salt and stir until just combined and no streaks of dry ingredients remain.
4. Pour into prepared pan and spread into an even layer.
5. To prepare cheesecake mixture, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla extract in a medium bowl until smooth. Distribute the cheesecake mixture in 8 dollops over batter in the pan. Swirl in with a knife or spatula.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until brownies and cheesecake are set. A knife inserted into the cheesecake mixture should come out clean and the edges will be lightly browned.
7. Let cool completely in pan on a cooling rack before lifting out the parchment paper to remove the brownies.