Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie baking challenge is Dorie's Espresso Cheesecake Brownies, chosen by Melissa of Life In a Peanut Shell (who has the recipe within her blog). I enjoyed making this recipe with friends and we all agreed that any lover of chocolate, coffee and cheesecake would appreciate this!

We thought the recipe was pretty easy and loved the flavor combination. The recipe involves creating 3 specific layers of goodness: decadent bittersweet chocolate brownie bottom, a speckled espresso cheesecake layer, and a sweet sour cream topping to finish it off.

To start off, we melted bittersweet chocolate chips with butter over the stove, which was then combined with a flour mixture to create our brownie layer and poured into our baking dish.


Next, we made the espresso cheesecake layer with cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and dissolved espresso powder... and this was poured over the brownie layer before baking in the oven.

While the brownies were baking, we heated a mixture of sour cream and confectioner's sugar to create our topping. This was spread on top of the brownies after they cooled a bit. The end result? These decadent brownies with a nice creamy cheesecake layer!