These homemade German Cream Cheese Brownies are a delicious addition to any holiday cookie platter. This recipe is made from scratch but SO easy! Rich chocolate brownies swirled with sweet cream cheese helps make this a decadent treat your family will love!
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I'm here today with a nice healthy dose of rich, decadent chocolatey-goodness! Just kidding, these aren't actually healthy (sorry). But they are definitely delicious so I'm actually not sorry, because flavor > healthy, especially around the holidays.
When I was going through family dessert recipes for the holidays, this recipe came up and my mom got all excited. I believe her words were "It's not Christmas without German Cream Cheese Brownies.
This took me by surprise, because I could not not for the life of me remember even having these in my 32 25 years of family Christmas dessert tables.
And since I can't leave anything well enough alone (my mom is totally used to this by now) I mentioned my lack of brownie-filled memories right then and there. She then reminded me that I tend to avoid the more rich and decadent desserts, which is right. I'm more of a Pecan Tart kind of gal.
She also went on to tell me that she's been making these for so long that she can't remember where exactly she got the recipe but she thinks it might have been on the box for the type chocolate chocolate used in this very recipe. This makes sense considering the name.
All that to say, I do enjoy something so sinfully rich once in a while. And the holidays are perfect for this kind of naughty food.
I mean, really, is chocolate ever actually a bad idea? Of course not! Though I tend to gravitate towards more savory foods, it's still chocolate and I'm pretty sure I eat at least a little bit each day.
But the thing that really takes this over the top and pushes you into the (rich) rabbit hole is the addition of the cream cheese. So in addition the the chocolaty goodness you also have the aspect of cream, cheesecake-y happiness to push the decadence factor over-the-top.
Since this was one of those lovely recipes that was handwritten on a recipe card in my mom's overflowing recipe box, I can't confirm it's origin. We suspect it may have been on the back of a box of Baker's chocolate because the recipe specifies the use of Baker's chocolate. But I can't confirm this.
Either way, make these for your next holiday party. We like to refrigerate them prior to eating because they have the cheese in them and also because they get a fantastic, chewy texture.
Other great Christmas cookies are:
German Cream Cheese Brownies
Ingredients
- 1 4 oz. pkg. of Baker's German Sweet Chocolate
- 5 Tbsp. of butter divided
- 3 oz. of cream cheese softened
- 1 cup of sugar
- 3 eggs divided
- ½ cup + 1 Tbsp. of unsifted flour divided
- 1 ½ tsp. of vanilla extract divided
- ½ tsp. of baking powder
- ¼ tsp. of salt
- ½ cup of coarsely chopped nuts optional- I didn't use them
- ¼ tsp. of almond extract
Instructions
- Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper (extend it up over the sides for easy removal) and grease it.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Melt your chocolate and 3 Tbsp. of butter in a double boiler over low heat, stirring constantly (or do it in the microwave in two 15 second increments followed by 10 second increments, stirring between each increment until it's fully melted). Set aside to cool.
- Cream the remaining butter in with the cream cheese until softened and well combined.
- Slowly add ¼ cup of sugar until it's light and fluffy, then stir in 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of flour, and ½ tsp. of vanilla and set aside.
- In a separate bowl, beat the remaining eggs until they're fluffy and light in color. Gradually add the remaining ¾ cup of sugar and beat it all together until it's thickened.
- Fold in the baking powder, salt and remaining ½ cup of flour, followed by the cooled chocolate. Stir in the nuts, almond extract and remaining 1 tsp. of vanilla.
- Once this is all combined, measure 1 cup of the chocolate batter and set aside.
- Spread the remaining chocolate batter to cover the bottom of the baking pan.
- Pour the cream cheese mixture over the chocolate batter on the baking pan and spread it out.
- Drop the remaining 1 cup of chocolate batter in spoonfuls all over the cheese mixture.
- Using a butter knife, swirl the chocolate batter dollops with the cream cheese mixture to create a marbling effect (Don't over do it, I learned that less is more. I think I swirled a bit too much on mine so the marbling in the photos isn't as pronounced as it could be.).
- Bake for 35-40 minutes and then cool and cut into squares.
- Store covered and in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve.
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