Cream Cheese Brownies

A big hit at a picnic party, these brownies are not the marble-swirly type brownies with big creamy chunks. Although I do like that kind of brownie, I was happy with how these turned out. The cream cheese is blended with the rest of the ingredients and makes a tangy taste that works well with chocolate.
Warning: if you are tempted by brownie batter you probably shouldn't make this recipe, because you might want to slurp up the batter before getting any into the oven.
This recipe was adapted from one in my Ultimate Brownie Book that Katie gave us. We love it. We can always find a brownie or blondie recipe with any ingredient we have to use up: cream cheese, applesauce, bananas, cola...

Cream Cheese Brownies

2 C flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 C semi sweet chocolate chips
2 Tb cocoa
10 Tb room temp butter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
4 large eggs + 1 egg yolk
1 Tb vanilla

Preheat oven to 350, place rack in lower third of oven. Grease and flour a 9 X 13 pan.

Whisk flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa in medium bowl. Set aside.

Melt chocolate chips in microwave or double boiler. Let cool 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, cream butter, cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer until sugar has dissolved and mixture is thick and creamy. Beat in the melted chocolate until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, then egg yolk and vanilla.

Mix in flour mixture with a spoon or spatula just until incorporated. poor into prepared pan, smoothing top and filling corners.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool in pan for 1 hour.