A few days ago, my sister let me know that the Great American Cookies shop closest to us was abruptly shutting down. I wasn’t too sad about this, as I have always thought eating cookies you baked yourself is more fun than eating store bought cookies. There was only one thing on the menu that I loved and thought I might miss: the Red Velvet Brownies. Luckily for me, I found this easy recipe at Hugs & Cookies XOXO, and I knew I wouldn’t have to be missing anything at all.  🙂

So we start with the lineup of ingredients.  I promise, you should already have most of this stuff in your house!

The canister with the sheep on it holds my flour. Sheep = fluffy & white = flour. Well it makes sense in my mind at least.

The only thing I needed to pick up at the store was a block of cream cheese.  Also, you will only need the red food coloring from the package.

Preheat the oven to 350, and spray or line with non-stick foil an 8 x8 baking pan.  I sprayed mine because I knew my husband would pretty much be eating them right out of the pan.

We start by combining the melted butter, sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder, and red food coloring (I used half a bottle.  The recipe called for a tablespoon but the amount I used was way under.) .  Then whisk in your eggs one at a time.  The batter will be somewhat thin, and it should look something like this:

Whisking makes the little bubbles appear.

Fold in the flour slowly, gradually so that you don’t make a big mess like I did all over my counter.  Your lovely red velvet brownie batter is now ready to be poured into the pan you have prepared.  Set aside 1/4 cup of the batter.

If you have a little measuring cup like this, it makes the last step much easier. Also, please ignore my horribly chipped nails.

In a separate bowl, beat together the cream cheese, more sugar, another egg, and some more vanilla.

I didn't wanna dirty the big stand mixer with such a small amount to mix.

When this is all blended smoothly as in the above picture, dollop the cream cheese mixture on top of the red velvet batter very carefully, making sure you drop it gently in top and it does not sink all the way to the bottom.  By the time you make all the little dollops on top, you should pretty much have it covered, and only need to slightly spread the cream cheese layer out so that the layer is smooth and even.

Like so.

Now you will take that 1/4 cup of red batter you set aside earlier, and drizzle it over the cream cheese layer.  This is why I said having the little measuring cup would make it easy :).  Just make as even a drizzle as you can, it’s OK if it’s not perfect.  Because the next thing we’re going to do is mess it all up!  Take a toothpick and slowly drag it through the surface of the brownies, taking care not too go too deep or too fast (am I still talking about brownies?).  Ahem.  When you are done, they are ready to go in the oven, and should look something like this:

I baked mine for about 28 minutes, but of course all ovens are different.  If I were you I would set the oven timer for 25 minutes, then take them out and do the toothpick test.  If they need more time, put them back in for about 3 minutes per interval, checking for doneness in between.  Here is my finished product!

yummmm

As you can see, these are very thick, dense brownies.  Mine were very moist.

They were also 100 % delicious.  Considering one brownie at “that cookie place” costs about $2.50, and you will probably already have everything you need to make a WHOLE PAN of these, nothing should be stopping you from reveling in red velvet!

This Post has been linked up on:

Gooseberry Patch
Hugs & Cookies XOXO
Home Savvy A to Z