Some Fridays, after a long week of work I don’t want to go out and just want to cozy up in a warm sweater and have the smell of freshly baked goods fill the room. How about some warm matcha cheesecake brownies? Subtle matcha flavor with some deep fudgy chocolatey goodness. Pretty simple too without needing to whip out any of the kitchen appliances – no kitchen aid, hand mixer, blender, nothing.
So, by some Fridays, I meant this last Friday… The husband had plans to go out and I politely declined. Instead, I opened my new package delivery for Christmas in September! Recently, I bought a couple Korean cookbooks online and I am so excited to try them all out! The first book I dove into is “Baked Cookies” by a popular Korean baking blogger. It’s currently a top seller in Korea and so I can only have my hopes up on how delicious all the recipes will be! Being a lazy Friday, I wanted something easy and spotted this pretty green brownies. Bingo.
The brownies are fudgy starting with a base of melted chocolate. The recipe calls for dark chocolate, but I actually don’t like dark chocolate and swapped it out for bittersweet chocolate. I think actually, semi-sweet will work well here too. And then there’s the matcha cream cheese. Similar to when baking cheesecake, cream cheese must be at room temperature. I wrapped the cream cheese in my warm vest to try to get them to cool down quicker! Not sure it worked, but I tried. At the end, swirling the the green and brown is fun. Don’t make the mistake I made by trying to smooth out the top after swirling the two batters around because the pretty mix of colors will just all becomes one color again!! Still delicious.
*Don’t try to cut down on the sugar in this recipe. Most Korean baked goods already come with fairly reduced sugar amounts compared to American recipes so then it will become really not sweet, then is that really a fun dessert?
| Cook Time | 22-25 minutes |
| Servings |
8x8 square pan
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- 7 ounce (200 g) cream cheese *recommend full fat
- ¼ cup (50 g) sugar
- 1 egg yolk *large egg
- ¼ tsp lemon juice
- 1 Tbsp + ½ tsp (7 g) matcha powder
- 1 cup (160 g) chocolate chips *cookbook recipe species for dark chocolate. I’m not a dark chocolate fan and used bittersweet chocolate. Semi-sweet chocolate should work here too.
- 6 Tbsp (85 g) unsalted butter
- ½ cup (50 g) sugar
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup + 2 Tbsp (75 g) all purpose flour
- 2 tsp cocoa powder *natural or dutch-processed
- ¼ tsp salt
Ingredients
Match Cheesecake Batter
Brownie Batter
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- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (170 degrees C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Line a 8 inch square pan with parchment paper or grease it lightly with oil.
- In a medium sized bowl, whisk and beat the cream cheese. Once smooth and creamy, add in the sugar and whisk well again.
- Add in the egg yolk and whisk until well combined. Add the lemon juice into the cream cheese batter and whisk together.
- Swift the matcha powder. Whisk into the cream cheese batter. Set aside.
- Simmer water in a saucepan. In a heatproof bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate chips and butter. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar.
- * Optional, add tsp of vanilla extract. This is not in the original recipe but I think adds to the batter.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, salt and whisk well until the batter is smooth and glossy.
- In the pan, spread about 2/3rd of the brownie batter evenly.
- Spread the matcha cream cheese filling over the brownie layer.
- Dollop a few spoonfuls of the reserved brownie batter on top of the matcha cream cheese. Run a knife or wooden skewer back and forth through the two batters until you have a marble effect.
- Bake for 22-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
Since this is a Korean based recipe I highly recommend using the gram measurements when stated. I've provided the US conversion measurements but grams will be most accurate.
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