Cherry Swirl Brownies

I found this recipe on the back of a Betty Crocker Ultimate Fudge brownie box mix.  It looked extremely tempting, so I cut out the recipe to give it a try later on.  Yesterday I pulled out the recipe again and ended up with this...

Betty Crocker Ultimate Fudge brownie box mix with a layer of cherry cream cheese in the middle.

They are very yummy and gooey.  Some problems I had with the recipe was that if I had had a 9x9-inch pan, I would have used it so that the brownies wouldn't have been so thick.  As it was, I used an 8x8-inch pan and had to bake over the recommended time by a little less than 10 minutes.  The top of the brownies became quite crunchy, which I wasn't too fond of.

Another problem I had was that of mixing an egg with the cream cheese mixture.  I presume this was to make the cream cheese layer puff up a bit, but while it tastes just fine and cream cheesey, the close-up texture looks like that of a baked egg, which sort of puts me off a little bit!

The recipe can be found at the Betty Crocker website.

The only thing I did differently with the recipe was with the cream cheese mixture - I mixed the chopped cherries into the cream cheese mixture last so that I wouldn't squash and smoosh the cherries.

I personally think that the brownies taste best straight from the refrigerator, rather than straight from the oven or at room temperature.  But try it out, and see what you think!