All Nuts Cream Cheese Brownies

I was craving for the cream cheese brownies that we used to buy from our favorite bakery at the mall. Most of the time, when I’m craving for something, I want it stat. So, I Googled for an easy brownie-from-scratch recipe and found one for a 5-ingredient brownie. I then combined it with cream cheese for a nice and creamy swirl and sprinkles of walnuts, peanuts, cashews and almonds for an added crunch. In less than an hour, our family of four were enjoying slices of my easy, homemade and chewy All Nuts Cream Cheese Brownies!

All the ingredients, except for that pouch of All Nuts, were our pantry staples. Recently, I included blocks of cream cheese as part of our stock since it is very versatile – for frosting, cheese cakes, and brownies. I tweaked the recipe that I found on Google with the following modifications:

What we need

• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup of cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup of palm oil (substitute for 1/2 cup of butter)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 block of cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar

How to do it

1. Whisk the eggs with the palm oil.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and 1 cup of sugar over the egg and oil mixture. Stir until well combined.
3. Grease baking pan and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius) .
4. Pour the brownie batter onto the baking pan. I used our 11″ x 9″in baking pan. Set aside.
5. Combine cream cheese with 1/2 cup of sugar. Using a hand mixer, beat until smooth.
6. Put dollops of the cream cheese mixture sporadically on top of the brownie batter. Use a bread knife or toothpick to make swirls of cream cheese.
7. Sprinkle generously with peanuts, walnuts, cashews, and almonds.
8. Bake for 25 minutes or until the brownies are pulling from the sides of the pan.
9. Let it cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.
10. Serve and enjoy!

Helpful tips

• Before adding nuts, make sure that those who would eat your brownies do not have nut allergies. Peanut allergies are very dangerous and could escalate quickly.
• Unsalted butter is best for this recipe. I ran out of butter when I wanted to make this recipe that’s why I searched for a substitute. Of all the items in the suggestion, palm oil is the one that I have on hand.
• Always grease your pan properly before pouring the batter. If I’m using butter for the recipe, I slather the leftover butter onto the pan. A well-greased pan will make it easier to slice and serve your baked brownies.
• Baking time varies depending on the size and depth of your pan. The deeper the pan, the more time you need to bake your brownies.
• A lot of baking blogs that I have read and baking TV shows that I have watched, said that brownies will continue to bake on its own even after the oven is turned off. Before I learned about it, I used to overbake resulting into hard and brittle brownies. From my experience, whenever I begin to have a whiff of the soon-to-be-baked brownies, I do a toothpick test to check if the brownies are almost baked, usually, when the toothpick comes out clean. If it does, I would turn off the oven and let the brownies rest inside for 10 minutes max.