Apple Cheesecake Brownies for National Chocolate Week
Squidgy chocolate brownies sandwich a layer of apple and ricotta cheesecake. Delightfully decadent and delicious. Enjoy these apple cheesecake brownies with a fork as an after dinner dessert. Or just tuck into one with a cup of tea or coffee.
It’s National Chocolate Week and I fancied some brownies. I had a tub of ricotta to use up and some Cornish apples from my mother’s garden. So to celebrate this most auspicious week, I decided to experiment and make some apple ricotta cheesecake brownies.
Apple Cheesecake Brownies
These apple cheesecake brownies are slightly more involved than my normal super quick brownie creations. The actual brownie is quick and easy to prepare and is made in one pan. But you also need to cook the apples and beat them together with the other cheesecake ingredients. This forms the middle layer of the brownies.
Once you’ve made the two mixtures, it’s just a simple process of layering them up in a baking pan. Place them in the oven and bake.
Initially I wanted the brownies to have a marbled effect. However, when I dragged the end of a teaspoon through the mixture to try and swirl it a bit, it stubbornly decided to stay a sandwich. As it turns out, this worked really well. The cheese is sandwiched elegantly in the middle and acts as a foil to the dark richness of the brownie.
The chocolate gods must have been smiling on me because these apple cheesecake brownies turned out to be a fitting tribute to National Chocolate Week. They have a crusty sugar top, which turns deliciously chewy in a toffeish sort of way. They’re soft in the middle and serve equally well as a pudding eaten with a spoon.
They retain their shape, however so you can eat them perfectly well with your fingers. As CT can testify; I did have to shoo him away from the tin.
The 85% dark chocolate combines with the slight tartness of the apple, which helps to counteract that brownie sweetness. It makes for a very pleasant eating experience.
Other Brownie Recipes You Might Like
- Avocado brownies with a hint of spice
- Chocolate fudge brownies
- Marmite brownies
- Rose cardamom brownies
- Spicy orange brownies
- Triple chocolate almond brownies (gluten-free)
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these squidgy brownies, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more apple recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Apple Cheesecake Brownies. PIN IT.
Apple Cheesecake Brownies – The Recipe
Apple Cheesecake Brownies
Ingredients
Apple Cheesecake
- 2 cooking apples weighing around 200g (I used an unspecified Cornish variety)
- 50 g golden caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar)
- 250 g ricotta
- 1 medium egg
Brownies
- 100 g unsalted butter
- 100 g dark chocolate (I use Green & Black’s 85%)
- 200 g dark muscovado sugar
- 2 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 75 g wholemeal spelt flour
Instructions
Apple Cheesecake
- Peel, core and slice two medium apples and place in a pan.
- Add the sugar and a tablespoon of water.
- Simmer for five minutes until the apples are soft and no longer wet. Allow to cool.
- Stir in the ricotta, then beat in the egg.
Brownies
- Melt the butter in a large pan over a low heat.
- Break up the dark chocolate and add to the pan.
- Add the sugar and stir well until all smooth, then leave to cool a little.
- Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Stir in the flour.
- Spoon half of the batter into a 23 cm (9") square silicone mould or lined tin. Cover this with the cheese and apple mixture and then top with the remaining brownie batter.
- Bake in the middle of the oven at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for 25 minutes or until the top has set but the middle remains slightly squidgy.
- Leave to cool in the mould, then cut into twelve large pieces or sixteen smaller ones.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
As these brownies contain local and very seasonal apples, I am entering them into Simple and in Season, guest hosted this month by Nazima of Franglais Kitchen.
I’m also entering the apple cheesecake brownies into Javelin Warrior’s Made with Love Mondays as they’re made from scratch. Of course.
Ooh Choclette I love that you have such a fantastic number of brownie recipes on your site. (I see there are 31 to date…!) and these are so inventive. I love the idea of the apple ricotta encased within the brownie batter. Yum
Thanks Nazima – 31 brownie recipes looks like overkill – oh dear! Somehow though, I suspect a few more will find there way onto the blog. I am a bit of a brownie addict. The apples worked wonderfully well with these the tartness of the apples really offset the rich and sweet brownie.
I like these sticky square chocolate treats! Apples, ricotta cheese and chocolate sound very good to me! I’m learning so much about chocolate from your blog. I’m a chocolate fan but I’m not so good to cook with it. Thanks
Thanks for the encouraging words Rita, it’s always good to know that someone finds what I’m doing useful 🙂
They look great. I would never have thought to put an apple cheesecake layer in the middle. Come to think of it I would never have thought of apple cheesecake at all, but even on its own it sounds like a good combo.
Thanks C – Apple cheesecake is delicious all on it’s own, but it did also go very well in this brownies.
I love these Choclette. You are clever. I wish I could tuck into a piece right now. Adding apple was inspired!
Thanks Jac 🙂
Such a creative recipe, Choclette – I love the pairing of apples with chocolate and ricotta. I have no idea what it tastes like (beyond your description as I’ve never had the pairing), but it appeals to me and I’d snag a few if left unguarded 😉 Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks JW. It’s that time of year when I have a load of apples and have to think of different ways of using them. Some ideas work better than others, but this was a good one.
Great experimenting – I love the sound of the filling – sort of like having your brownies with some fruit and cream in the middle instead of on the side
Yes Johanna, good way of putting it 🙂
Oh my! I love experimenting and using up your ricotta and mum’s apples is a great idea but in brownies? Fabulous! They look incredibly squishy and with the apple centre, I’m in heaven just imagining them, Choclette. Bravo!
Thanks Jill. They ended up being slightly squishier than I was hoping for, but oh so delicoius.
love a baking experiment!… and these really do sound and look pretty unusual but I can completely see that they would taste incredible… nice freestyle think C xxx
It’s the experimenting that makes all this baking malarky so much fun Dom 🙂
Blimey these sound amazing. I love the combination of flavours here.
Thank you. Apple and chocolate, I’ve done quite a bit of experimenting with, but this was the first time I tried it with cheese too. It worked really well.
These look divine.
Thanks for visiting my blog and for commenting 🙂
The title for this post was enough to make me drool! I’m adding these to my list of things to try asap.
Just eating one now Janine and it’s just as good as when I made them on Sunday.
They look very good, I can imagine the apple would lighten the overall brownie richness.
Thanks Janice – yep, that’s just how it is – eating one now as it happens 😉
Oh these sound wonderful! Love the apple ricotta middle, what a scummy idea! Lovely recipe!
Thanks Jayne. The cheesecake layer was delicious, but it was even better with the brownies sandwiching it 🙂
Fantastic! The use of ricotta means I can eat as many as I like ;0)
But of course Chele 😉
Wonderful recipe with ricotta. I love how you made these brownies using my favourite cheese. When I am in Italy I buy it on a weekly basis as a replacement for cheese (but there it is fatter and tastes different). The one you find here is perfect for baking.
Thank you Alida. It’s interesting to hear that ricotta in Italy is different to what we can buy here. I keep meaning to have a go at making my own, but haven’t managed it yet.
Here we go … another chocolaty thing I could make this week (after all I have ricotta, that needs using). How will I ever survive this?! I feel increasingly lazy, though today, and a bit depressed, too. Should these brownies be the solution or another problem. All I know right now is, that they look and sound delicious …
Glad you gave them a go Chris and even better that they cheered you up a bit 🙂
I love your flavour combinations. You always pick such clever ways to use your ingredients. Apple & Ricotta mixed with vanilla sugar sounds fantastic. Like you, I now enjoy combining my flours when baking so thanks for giving me the idea!
Thank you Laura – it’s a bit hit and miss. Most of the time it works well and I’m happy BUT sadly not always. Glad you’ve found it fun experimenting with flour. I’ve made something with hemp flour recently and it was just a bit too bitter.
Lovely, lovely, lovely, and you captured the squidge and gooeyness that just makes you want to grab one (or more). x
He he Sue, squidgy and gooey these certainly were – more of a slice on a plate with a fork rather than grabbing with your hands 😉
These look incredible, I’ve been looking for something to bake as a housewarming gift for friends and I think these could be it!
Thanks Nat. If you do make them, try to get the apple mixture as dry as possible or the brownies will end up too wet – which is fine if you’re happy to eat it as a pudding.
I love the combination ricotta-apple-chocolate…
Have a nice day
xox
Thanks Manu, the combination was quite delicious.
Oh I love it when a baking experiment turns out better than you expected, and your brownies certainly look the picture. Such a different idea to put an apple ricotta mix in the middle too. I might well have to make these just to try the flavour combination for myself. X
Thanks Fleur, they certainly did it for us 😉