Mediocre Kitchen Madness: March Edition!

– Hey hey hey! It’s Maggie…

– …and Haley!

– We’re excited to present the brand new March edition of Mediocre Kitchen Madness!

– This recipe is another fun one from our queen Sally, of course…mint chocolate chip cheesecake brownies!!!

– We understand that this sounds very complicated and not too fun to make, but trust us, if we can do it, so can you!

– That should be our motto.

– Yay! We have a motto now! 

– We’re officially ~offical~ now.

– Okay okay, we should probably get into the recipe now…

– Good idea, let’s start with the ingredients:

 

For the brownies:

  • ½ cup salted butter
  • 8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ tsp salt

For the mint cheesecake layer:

  • 8 oz cream cheese (softened)
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg yolk
  • ¼ tsp peppermint extract
  • Green food coloring
  • ⅔ cup mini chocolate chips

 

Begin by placing the oven rack to the lower third position and preheating the oven to 350ºF.

 

– I guess the oven rack position is important for some reason…

– Maybe we can email Sally and ask her.

– There’s no way she would give us the time of day.

 

Line the bottom and all sides of an 11×7 inch baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving an overhang on the sides.

 

– I honestly don’t see why the overhang was important but whatever.

– It definitely wasn’t important, but it felt wrong not to have.

 

Melt butter and semi-sweet chocolate in a medium saucepan on medium heat, stirring constantly. 

 

– We cheated big time on this step.

– Yeah, a microwave is an easier alternative. 

– Plus, we didn’t bother stirring it until the end, and it turned out okay.

 

Remove the chocolate/butter mixture from heat and let cool for 15 minutes.

 

– We put it in the fridge to help it cool faster. 

– We had a dance party while we waited.

– A dance party is a great way to pass time!

 

Stir sugar into the cooled chocolate/butter mixture until combined. Add in the eggs one at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. 

 

– We kind of forgot to read the part about whisking the batter after each egg…

– …so we just added them all at the same time and then stirred. 

– I think it was fine.

 

Whisk in the vanilla, and then fold in the flour and salt. 

 

– For once, this step went without a hitch, save for a little bit of spilled flour. 

– Yep, it wouldn’t be a Mediocre Kitchen Madness without some flour spillage. 

 

Pour batter into the prepared pan, reserving ¼ cup of batter for later. 

 

– One-quarter cup of batter is NOT enough! 

– We recommend leaving a little bit more. 

 

For the cheesecake swirl, start by beating the softened cream cheese, sugar, egg, peppermint extract, and green food coloring with a hand mixer. 

 

– We used a *stand* mixer because we’re extra like that.

– Stand mixer > hand mixer…

– We also failed when it came to adding peppermint.

– I wasn’t detecting much minty flavor. You might want to add more.

 

Beat for one minute, then stir in the remaining chocolate chips by hand.

 

– After this part, the mixture looks like raw mint chocolate chip ice cream.

– Can you have raw ice cream? I’m pretty sure that would just be melted ice cream…

– I’m really not sure, but if ice cream could be raw, it would look like this.

 

Dollop spoonfuls of the cream cheese mixture on top of the prepared brownie batter. Cover with the remaining ¼ cup of brownie batter and swirl with a knife. 

 

– Um, it did not swirl for us. 

– It was a little too thick…

– A little thick is an understatement.

 

Add mini chocolate chips on top, if desired. 

 

– We desired normal chocolate chips.

– A.K.A. we didn’t have mini chocolate chips.

 

Bake brownies for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out almost clean. 

 

– We ended up having to bake them for about 45 minutes.

– Which meant 45 minutes of TikToks for us!

 

Allow brownies to cool completely before cutting into squares. 

 

– Instead, we just took spoons and ate some of the warm brownie. 

– It was better that way but good both ways. 

– Warm desserts hit different.

 

The brownies will stay fresh for one week stored in the refrigerator.

 

– These brownies were definitely in my top recipes we’ve made so far. 9/10!

– I agree, the only thing I would have changed was the amount of peppermint put into the batter. Other than that, they were perfect! 9/10!

 

Thank you for reading the March edition of Mediocre Kitchen Madness. If you try this recipe, email pictures to [email protected] or [email protected] to be potentially featured in the next edition!

 

If you made it this far, comment your favorite recipe we’ve ever done! PLEASE!!