Buying a 1kg box of cream cheese last September was probably one of the best things I've done that month. Turns out, buying that much cream cheese is cheaper since you can do so much with it! I mainly bought it for my birthday cake but since I only needed around 455g, I still had quite a lot of cream cheese to play with. We had some on bread for breakfast, some on crackers, and some were made into brownies!

Cheesecake brownies are quite special to me because I remember the first time I encountered them. It happened around 2012/3, when my sister made it for the first time and I assisted her. We both thought we did something wrong because the cream cheese swirl looked a bit soft and un-set but when we bit into a brownie square, it was heaven. The creaminess and a hint of saltiness of the cream cheese just went well with the decadent chocolate brownie underneath. So good! And so, since I still have cream cheese left, I thought I'd bake a batch of these yummy brownies for old time's sake.

The recipe I followed wasn't the same recipe my sister used but I'm glad this one still turned out great. Admittedly, this batch of brownies are more on the set side than the gooey/soft side but I like the bite and the overall taste. I highly recommend using a dark unsweetened cocoa powder for the brownies because they just level up any brownie game (thank you to my sister who gave me a bag of Valhrona cocoa!). 

If you're a fan of rich very chocolatey brownies with a creamy, a bit salty swirl, then this one might be right up your alley. Enjoy!