TWD: ESPRESSO CHEESECAKE BROWNIES

What's not to love about these brownies? Chocolate, espresso, sour cream - sounds pretty good to me except for one word.... "cheesecake". I can not recall any incident(s) that would create irrational feelings, but that one word just doesn't do anything for me - even after eating some cheesecakes that I would have to say are very good (does that make any sense????).

Thinking about skipping - I decided to humor others around me and give this a go. My compromise was that there would only be a half-batch......

The end result was actually much better than I thought/hoped it would be. There was a tasty combination of flavors that worked very well together with none of them being overpowering.

With a couple adjustments - this was pretty easy although there was a lot of cooling time.

• I didn't have espresso powder so I used a cup of left over morning coffee and added a tsp of instant coffee to it. This gave a lot of coffee flavor and without being bitter.
• No bittersweet chocolate in the pantry so milk chocolate made its way into the batter.
• A panic attack (what would really happen if the knife were "plunged" into the brownie layer - yikes) kept me from making the swirls.

Being somewhat over-indulgent - I ate my piece with the last scoop of chocolate peanut butter toasted coconut hot fudge ice cream..........

Did this change my opinion of cheesecake - probably not, but I have decided to be open minded enough to make it again!