Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie Bars

I’m going to start by voicing what may be a polarizing opinion. Some things in this world are not worth making from scratch. I have a busy life, and I know that every, single person who reads this also knows that we are constantly weighing the value of our time against the results of our efforts. Maybe we do it subconsciously most of the time, but we all do it. So, that brings me around to the topic of brownies. I am pretty firmly in the camp that the time (and extra dishes) it takes to bake brownies from scratch doesn’t add a huge boost to the taste and quality of the finished product. In some cases, the boxed mix tastes better. I make Ghiradelli boxed brownies all the time. I have yet to find a brownie recipe that challenges my deeply held belief that brownies don’t break above the Vicky Mendoza Diagonal*.

*How I Met Your Mother reference. See also the indifference curve in microeconomics.

Now that we’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, this week, I made brownies from scratch as part of these Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie Bars. The original recipe from Sugar Spun Run says you can use a boxed brownie mix or use their brownie recipe. I chose to do it the hard way. Maybe I would finally find the brownie recipe that would change my mind. I’m nothing if not open to being wrong about brownies.

I’m not going to lie and tell you this dessert was easy. There are three separate components, and each takes a decent amount of time to prepare. I would definitely disagree with the estimate of total prep/cook time being 1 hour and 25 minutes. Maybe I’m just slow, but this definitely took upwards of 2 hours. The first component was prepping the raspberry sauce. Cooking it was easy. Getting it through the sieve was not. It was like all the work of kneading dough with none of the satisfaction. You need to scrape it over, and over, and over, and over to get all of that raspberry goodness. I’m sure I wasted some, because I got a little sick of doing it. Definitely labor intensive, but also pretty yummy. The end result is a smooth, tart hit of raspberry. There has to be a better way. I’ll find it the next time I need a sauce like this.

The next step was to make the brownies. The first thing that is different (and necessary) than baking most other things using cocoa powder is what is called “blooming” the cocoa. If you’ve never heard of that technique before, you are not alone. I hadn’t either. Basically, you heat a liquid (water, in this case), mix in the cocoa, and stir it until smooth. This releases the chocolate flavor better than adding the dry cocoa powder. Following the recipe, I also added semi-sweet chocolate at this point. Next step, resist the urge to drink it…

Ingredients should be added in a very specific order, being careful to fully integrate each ingredient before adding the next. I used a hand mixer for this. I find it easier to control than a stand mixer, and I don’t need to stop as often to scrape down the sides. Plus, I wanted to use the stand mixer for the cheesecake batter and I had limited time for that, so I didn’t want to have to clean everything first.

Here’s a step I don’t think you should miss. I talk a lot about using parchment, and I feel this is absolutely one of those times you need it. I left a good deal of overlap up the sides, because I wanted the finished result to be bars, and it would be extremely hard to cut in the 9×13 pan, especially with the brownie chilled. I wanted to be able to lift the whole thing out at once, by myself, and cut cleanly. This is a time where one ounce of preparation is absolutely worth a pound of the cure. Use your parchment, people!

The name of this game is to bake the brownies just enough that it can support the cheesecake, but not so done that it can’t take another 40 minutes while the cheesecake sets. It’s a tricky call. I am willing to bet I waited 2 minutes too long in the oven because I wanted to be safe. While you’re worried about if you’re overbaking your brownie, you have 20 minutes to mix the cheesecake batter. I made it in time, but barely. See below for the visuals of the next steps:

The recipe says to drip the sauce on with a spoon and swirl it with a toothpick. I happened to have squeeze bottles on hand, so I did that. My wonderful husband wanted badly to get involved, so he built me a device to drag all the toothpicks through with one fell swoop. You can see it resting on the corner of the last photo. We didn’t quite get the depth right, so it took three fell swoops. Patent pending on the prototype. Next time, I think I’ll swirl. It would look pretty if I swirled it.

If you ever make this, make sure you have enough chill time! The recipe suggests 6 hours after cooling it completely to room temperature. I didn’t notice that beforehand, and I have the added step of photographing everything for the blog before getting to eat/serve any of it, so it chilled for almost about 18 hours before I got to cut into it. That’s torture. Don’t do that to yourselves!

This recipe was a pretty big hit. I was probably right that the brownie was a little over, but that manifested itself into a slightly crunchy layer right on the bottom. That may have been a result of the parchment too, and that bit of crunch wasn’t unpleasant in the least. It was almost like a crust holding together the very fudgy brownie. The cheesecake portion was my favorite. It was light and had the perfect amount of tang. The raspberry sauce was awesome, though I should have added a bit more to the top. I was afraid of over-doing it on raspberry, so that’s on me.

I left a few squares for my husband (he did contribute, after all, and deserved his just desserts) but took the rest in to work. They didn’t last long. One of my co-workers kept sneaking them from the fridge. Another hoarded one in a cup in case they didn’t last until after lunch. When they were gone, someone else decided to scrape up the leftover crumbs of brownie with the bits of cheesecake left on the sides of the tupperware. While I got tons of compliments, all of them very much appreciated, the reactions were what I loved the most. Yup, that’s why I love to bake!

Guess I’ll have to make these again sometime, but when I do, I’m totally using a boxed mix. For now, my mind remains unchanged in the mix vs. scratch brownie debate!

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