Almond Cheesecake Brownies. Oh. My. Heavens. These ARE Heaven.

There are a million brownie recipes out there. And to think, I used to believe that using the box mix was making them “from scratch” because you weren’t buying them already made at the store–HA! I’ve come a long way. 😉

I have a tried a number of brownie recipes over the years and I have my favorites. But when Randy told me he wanted me to make him brownies for Father’s Day, I knew it was time to write my own recipe. The request to incorporate cream cheese into the brownies came as well. Challenge accepted. I came up with a plan that was actually quite delicious! I decided to make a cheesecake batter to spread throughout the brownie batter. But the real kicker would be to incorporate Randy’s favorite dessert flavor–almond. So instead of vanilla extract in the cheesecake, I used almond extract. Win! Almond has a distinct and powerful flavor so generally, you don’t need that much of it. However, I did use 2 whole teaspoons in this recipe because the chocolate of the brownie is so rich that I didn’t want it to hide the almond flavor. But if you want a more subtle almond flavor, only use 1 teaspoon. And if you want to replace the almond extract altogether with vanilla, just use 1 teaspoon of vanilla. 😉

My recipe for these brownies comes together from a lot of tasty research. I wanted to put something together that was relatively simple, but also rich and decadent. And the inspiration, of course, comes from my one and only. 🙂

Grab a tall glass of cold milk and enjoy!

Almond Cheesecake Brownies

Brownies:

• ½ lb butter
• 8 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips
• 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 1 TB instant coffee
• 1 TB vanilla
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• ¾ cup flour
• 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt

 Cheesecake:

• 16 oz. cream cheese, softened
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350*.

Over a double-boiler, melt the butter, the semisweet chocolate, and the unsweetened chocolate. Stir until smooth and allow to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, stir the eggs, coffee, vanilla, and sugar together.

Combine the chocolate and sugar mixtures and stir well.

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder and add to the chocolate/sugar mixture.

Pour batter into a greased 9×12 pan.

In a food processor, combine the softened cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and almond extract. Whip until smooth.

Add dollops of the cheese mixture into the pan of batter and spread or swirl together with a knife.

Bake 30-35 minutes.

Allow to cool slightly and then enjoy!

Here’s your handy printable! almond cheesecake brownies