Who Knows Cream Cheese, Tangerine Juice and Brownie Mix So Well Together

Sipping a cup of velvety latte is such an indulgence (sighing in bliss). Furthermore, what's not to love about pairing coffee with a small piece of cheese cake.

One bite satisfies cravings for brownie and cheese cake

This is not your ordinary graham-cracker-base cheese cake. Instead, it is half brownie and half New York style cheese cake.

I got the idea from a blog, which I can't relocate despite all the digging in my history drop down list. The whole blog is about recreating boxed desserts. For example, the one I spotted was a three layer biscuit/cake. The bottom was Nestle's ready to bake cookie dough, flattened into the bottom of muffin tins. Next is a layer of store-bought Oreo cookies, pressed lightly into the cookie dough. The last layer is those add your oil and egg and mix-well brownie batter. After 15 minutes in a 350 oven give you a three layered cake with a crunchy crust in the bottom. It's such a party treat, and no one would blame you for serving something out of a box.

As much as I like the creativity part, I wasn't so found of the overly sweet and artificial flavor in boxed desserts. One bite of that devilish creation is essentially a mouthful of chocolate chip cookies, Oreo and brownie. I created my own version of mixed batter dessert, and the result was half brownie and half cheese cake.

Cheese cake with a brownie 'crust'

I was worried that the two batter would settle into one another and producing an ugly marbled cheese cake because both the brownie and cheese cake batter was very runny. In fact, more runny than when I make the full serving of either the brownie or cheese cake. Luckily I made a fortunate mistake. I made the brownie batter first and just let it sit in the bowl on the countertop while I made the other batter. When it came time to fill the muffin tins, the chocolate batter sort of solidified and was on the dense side. The ultimate solution was to pour the denser batter first then the lighter one. I thought the cream cheese batter would be heavier, considering how there was a block of Philadelphia, but with a little tangerine juice and two eggs, the batter had a light chowder consistency.

Nevermind how bad the batters were before baking because when I took the muffin tray from the oven, I was delighted to see a clear separation at the bottom.

A little note on the recipe above, notice how I listed 1 tablespoon of tangerine juice under the cheese cake ingredient list. I was too lazy to squeeze a lemon and zest the fruit, so I just pulled out my citrus juice from the fridge. The cheese cake had a less vibrant citrus flavor to it. Because the tangerine juice is much sweeter than lemon juice, the cheese cake was on the sweet side with a hint of orange. Feel free to use lemonade, orange juice, or simply the classic lemon juice for your batter.