The boy Teenager has been complaining of an upset stomach on and off for the last couple of months. Given my gut's general dislike for all things gluten, he agreed to go gluten-free for the next few weeks to see if this might help him feel better. I wanted to whip him up a yummy dessert to show him that we would have to be mindful, but not necessarily sacrifice some of his favorite things in this little experiment. I had some Bob's Red Mill GF Brownie Mix in the pantry as it's already a favorite around here. They are delicious brownies whether you are GF or not. I followed the instructions on the package and then folded in 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and 1 1/4 cups of frozen blackberries at the end. I whipped up a quick cream cheese mixture (recipe below) and swirled it in. I needed to add about 7-8 minutes on to the end of my usual baking time for these brownies, I'm presuming because of the moisture given up by the blackberries. I'm guessing you could throw these add-ins into any brownie recipe/mix, but I think it works particularly well with the more 'cakey' type rather than 'fudgy' type of brownie. This makes them porous enough to absorb the blackberry juice. The added chocolate chips contribute a fudge-like quality without making the brownies so dense that they can't absorb the liquid. These brownies are so yummy, that they're still being talked about around here a couple of days later. Success!
Blackberry Cream Cheese Brownies
preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9" x 13" baking dish
Make your cream cheese swirl mixture:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
Beat all ingredients and set aside while you mix up the brownie batter.
(1) package Bob's Red Mill GF Brownie mix or your favorite brownie recipe/mix plus the ingredients to make the batter. In this case it was 1 egg, 1 1/2 sticks of butter, 2 tsp vanilla, 3/4 cup warm water.
Mix all ingredients to make batter.
Gently fold in 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and 1 1/4 cups of frozen blackberries.
Pour the brownie batter into the pre-greased baking dish.
Using a large spoon, drop the cream cheese mixture into the brownie batter. Drag a butter knife through the cream cheese and brownie mix to create the cream cheese swirls.
Bake until a toothpick poked into the center of the brownie pan comes out clean. With this mix that's 25-35 minutes.