"Close Enough" Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

Sometimes things I bake don't come out quite right. And you know what? That's okay. It's frustrating but at some point I have to take it in stride and just enjoy treat, even if it's not perfect. That's what happened when I attempted to make these red velvet brownies. They came out pretty ugly but, did my family still eat and enjoy them? Indeed they did.

What you need:
1/2 cup butter
2 oz dark chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon red food coloring
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Butter 8x8 square pan, line with parchment and butter parchment. In small, heatproof bowl, melt chocolate and butter together. Stir until combined and very smooth. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and food coloring.

Add chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Add flour and salt and stir until just combined and no streaks of dry ingredients remain.

This is where my I'm going to veer from the directions I followed. Instead of spreading all of your batter, save about a third of it. Spread the rest in the bottom of your pan.

Prepare the cheesecake mixture. Beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Distribute eight dollops of chocolate batter. Using the brownie batter you set aside, spread over the cheesecake mixture. Now dollop the rest of the cheesecake batter on top of that. Using a butter knife, drag through the batter in order to swirl. Bake for 35- 40 minutes until edges are brown, cheesecake is set and a knife inserted comes out clean.

This is how my brownies looked.

This is how they looked on the recipe.

I really think that by following my modified directions, the brownies should actually turn out marbleized. However, I was significantly unimpressed even with the taste of these so I don't feel the desire to make another batch. They're a bit bland in my opinion and I think there are many better brownie recipes out there.