Straight from Heaven

cooking-confessions:

raspberry & goat cheese swirl brownies

Brownie Ingredients:

• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs or flax eggs
• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

raspberry cheese swirl ingredients:

• 4 ounces room-temperature tofutti cream cheese (or regular cream cheese)
• 1-2 ounces room-temperature goat cheese
• 1 tablespoon room-temperature butter
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup raspberries (I used frozen), lightly mashed

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Set raspberries aside (especially if they’re frozen) to thaw at room temperature while you assemble everything else.
3. Make a make-shift double boiler by placing a glass bowl over a saucepan with simmering water. Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t actually touch the water. Melt the butter and chocolate, stirring so the chocolate doesn’t burn on the bottom. 
4. When the chocolate is melted, remove from heat. Stir in milk. 
5. Let the mixture cool to almost room temperature before adding the eggs (unless you’re not adding the eggs, then proceed).
6. In a separate bowl mix together flour and baking powder and salt. Set aside.
7. Into the chocolate bowl, stir in maple syrup and vanilla. Stir in (already beaten) eggs. Then add in the dry mixture, stir until just combined.
8. Whisk (strongly by hand or with a mixer) together the ingredients for the cheese layer – cream cheese, goat cheese, butter, maple syrup, vanilla, until smooth. As I mentioned above, I stirred this up without the goat cheese, divided it in half, and only added goat cheese to one half.
9. In an 8×8 or greased pan (or 2 smaller pans – I used two 5×7 pans) pour brownie mixture. 
10. Spoon cheese mixture on top (doesn’t have to be an even layer). 
11. Gently crush raspberries with your hands and add them (with juice) on top of the cheese layer.
12. Take a knife and swirl the layers in the pan.
13. Bake for 25-30 minutes (depending on the size of your pan and thickness of your brownie).