Cheesecake Brownie Cupcakes

So, tomorrow is my office Christmas party. We see patients until 11:45, then as soon as the docs are done we all file out in the waiting room & eat, play games, & do our final Kris Kringle exchange. The docs buy the main dish (which this year is Zea’s grilled chicken & BBQ ribs.. YUM) & we pot luck the rest. I decided to bring brownies, but since I knew I was going to be baking them after work I didn’t really want to do them from scratch. So I decided on a box of Pillsbury Cheesecake Brownies. Two of my favorites mixed together, totally has to be awesome.

Then I got home tonight, & realized “OH NO!” because I had brownies still in my brownie pan. There’s no way I was shoving them down my throat all at once, & I didn’t feel like dirtying another plate anyway. My decision? Cheesecake Brownie Cupcakes, & I could just cut them in half to make more servings. I doubt most of the office would eat them anyway, we seem to have some very picky eaters & very few cheesecake lovers. Here was my process.

I started with all of the usual ingredients. I figured I would do a smidge of decorating with Pillsbury Easy Frost Frosting & some chocolate sprinkles.

First step was to preheat my oven. The box says 350 degrees, but my oven is wacky & electric so I always do 25 degrees lower. I also had to use some baking spray on my cupcake pan. Since I was cutting in half, the brownie mix had to go directly into the individual cups with no liners.

Next step was to mix my brownie mix & cheesecake mix (for some reason I had a brain fart & only took a photo of the brownie mix – not that you’re missing much. haha.):

Then I had to pour my brownie mix into the pan, & spoon cheesecake batter on top of the brownie mix:

The box then tells you to run a knife through to create swirls. I was unsure of how this would work, since I was doing individual brownies as opposed to a full pan. So, I started in the middle and moved my knife in a swirl pattern such as the following:

This was the outcome (you will notice I ran out of batter before I could fill the final cup):

Pop them into the oven:

Cooking time was somewhere between 15-20 minutes, I’m not sure of the specifics. I just kind of checked them every now & then. After I took them out, I used a knife around the edges of the pan for easy removal & used the same knife to cut the brownies in half. I put them on my pretty glass platter, and use my Pillsbury Easy Frost Frosting & chocolate sprinkles to decorate some of them. Here’s my finished products:

I am having a really, really hard time not eating a whole brownie right now. I love brownies. I love cheesecake. They are my two major weaknesses. I could literally eat a whole pan or cake all by myself, in one sitting. Luckily, my husband helps with that little problem. My brownies up there are far from professional, but I bet they taste AWESOME.