the adventures in baking continue

At our housewarming we received a lovely + very thoughtful gift from my friend Krista + her new husband Matt. A fun kitchen towel and these little lovelies:

In addition there was a recipe for Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes on the back of the package. I had an extra package of brownie mix, so instead of getting fully in to the swing of things after burning myself out on baking, I used a box mix for the cupcakes themselves. I also happened to have an extra package of cream cheese that I didn't need for the pumpkin rolls so I made the filling to go on top of the brownie cupcakes. Yay for an experiment!

I rarely do things by the book in the kitchen, mostly because I'm making due with what I have. It usually turns out well. In this case, I had the ingredients to make the cupcakes from scratch, but I wanted to have brownies and I wanted it to be easier + faster. 

I wanted to get started right away, but the recipe called for softened cream cheese...so I improvised.

I didn't find any better advice beyond "wait 15 minutes or more" to softening it quickly. So I popped it in the preheating oven while I gathered ingredients, which took about 5 minutes, and it was perfectly soft but not runny. 

I mixed the box of brownie mix with oil, water, + eggs. Boring, easy, and kind of cheating. Then I poured the batter into these adorable little silicone cupcake liners. There's even a shaded line to guide you in how much to fill them. awesome.

Then I whipped up the easy cream cheese filling:


1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/2 C. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 C. chocolate chips (I didn't add these)
24 strawberreis ( I didn't do this either)


Beat together cream cheese, egg, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy. Drop a heaping teaspoonful of the cream cheese mix into each cupcake. Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool. 


I had to bake them for longer to get them to bake through since it was brownies instead of cake, maybe 35 minutes. I also had a bit of an overflow mishap with one of them. Last, but certainly not the least of my problems was that I didn't realize you have to "season" silicone by using oil on them the first couple of times. All my brownies were stuck and unfortunately I made them to bring to dinner with some friends of ours. So we just ate them with utensils right out of the liner. It was worth it. So yummy!

{mmmmmm}

P.S. don't forget to check out my new About Us page and my husband's new blog.