Yogurt Cheese Brownies

We had a bunch of yogurt cheese (I still need to post about this) that was getting near the end and decided to experiment with using it as a substitute for cream cheese.

In high school there was an awesome cheesecake brownie recipe that I used to use all the time. I decided to try and use the yogurt cheese as a substitute in a similar recipe. I couldn't find my masterpiece from the past so I went with the 'Cream Cheese Brownies' recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book: Limited Edition, pg. 210. The closest recipe I could find on their website were these Cream Cheese Marbled Brownies.

Oven Temperature: 350° F
Bake Time: 45 Minutes
Equipment/Materials:13x9x2-inch Pan

Ingredients:
Brownies:

• 8 ounces Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips. All natural premium baking chips. (I don't really endorse any specific brand, but I really like Ghriardelli Chocolate).
• 3 Tblspoons butter
• 3 Eggs (It called for 4, but I like fudgie brownies and left one out)
• 1 1/4 Cups sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Cheesecake (Yogurt Cheesecake)

• 3/4 Cups homemade yogurt cheese
• 2/3 Cups Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Milk ( I added this, the original recipe didn't require it)

Steps & Notes

1. Prepare Chocolate: Melted butter and Chocolate chips in a sauce pan over low heat on stovetop. Removed and let cool while preparing the base.
2. Mix Base: 
• Mixed 2 eggs with electric mixer until foamy.
• Added: Sugar, water, & just 1 tsp. of vanilla. Beat until mixture was thick and lemon-colored.
• Added Chocolate: Beat in the chocolate mixture prepared earlier.
• Stirred in flour, baking powder, and salt
3. Created cheesecake mix:
• Mixed Yogurt Cheese with Sugar
• Added milk & 1 tsp. Vanilla and mixed well
• Added 1 egg, mixed well.
4. Pour into pan:
• Put 1/2 of chocolate base in pan
• Layered on Cheesecake mix
• drizzled remaining chocolate mix on top of Cheesecake.
• Swirled top chocolate layer with cheesecake layer using a knife.
5. Bake: 45 minutes at 350° F

I think they taste best after they have cooled for at least 20 minutes, you get the best taste of the chocolate and everything while it is a little warm. However, my wife loves brownies when they are hot out of the oven. The recipe recommends letting them sit an hour or two. 

Result:

• Taste: Great. You could tell it wasn't real cream cheese. There was a little tart yogurt flavor, but the fact that they are much lower in fat than real cream cheese kind of makes up for it.
• Ranking: 4. They are good brownies, but this batch at least wasn't anything amazing.
• Our son was pretty excited about them. He would have eaten the whole pan if we had let him.

Things to improve:

While looking back over the recipe I mentioned I noticed there were quite a few things I did not do as the recipe recommended.Many of them very minor. There were a few things I think might have made a difference.

• Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice to the Cheesecake part. I think the acid might help setup the cheese better.
• Use fresher Yogurt Cheese. This was near the end of it's life and I think you can really taste the tart yogurt flavor, perhaps the lemon juice would have helped here, but I don't think so.