Laziness Leads to Deliciousness

Friends! I have some great news! I found out yesterday that a lurker (read: one who reads this blog but does not follow) of Boredom and Baking was inspired by one of my entries! He was OBVIOUSLY impressed by the Magic Middles. I mean, who wouldn't be, right?

Anyhow, he baked up a batch and brought them into work for my sister and their other co-workers to enjoy! How fun is that!?!?

My little blog is bringing joy to others :)

Alrighty, back to business.

Yesterday I was feelin' like eating massive amounts of chocolate. Like, I wanted to shovel copious amounts of brownies into my face until I found myself in a chocolate induced coma. I didn't have the time nor the motivation to make something from scratch; so, I poked around the pantry and found a box of brownies that I did not recall purchasing. I typically buy Duncan Hines and this was Betty Crocker. Not that I'm picky, but there is a certain consistency that I prefer when consuming a brownie and I'm pretty familiar with how long I need to cook a Duncan Hines batch in order to obtain said perfect consistency. Get it?

The baby was sitting happily in her new baby jail (a caged off section of the living room, she just learned how to crawl and manages to get herself into trouble if I look away for even a millisecond) and so just then was as good of a time as any to whip up the brownie mix and shove it into the oven.

I opened the fridge to grab the eggs that were needed for the mix and....what is this I see?? An unopened package of cream cheese?? Say it isn't so!!

CREAM CHEESE BROWNIES!

You better believe that I went onto the Interweb and found a recipe for those bad boys.

As it so happened, when I searched for the recipe on Google, the Betty Crocker website was one of the top results. I figured that if I was making Betty Crocker brownies, it might be best to use one of her recipes.
[I was once told that companies who publish recipes on their websites/packaging have thoroughly tested the recipes for taste...why risk their product on a craptastic recipe, right?]

WELL, I followed the instructions. It clearly stated to pour 3/4 of the brownie batter into the baking pan, then spoon the cream cheese mixture on, and then pour the remaining 1/4 of the batter.

Um, wrong.

Look what happens when you do that:

It looks kind of gross. I was kind of upset because I even tried to make the pretty swirls that you would typically see in cream cheese brownies, but it just wasn't going to happen. Ugh, what a hot mess of brownie batter and cream cheese mix.

I tried to be optimistic about it...maybe they'd look a bit better after baking?

Nope.
*sigh*

I'm pretty sure that if you're going to make this recipe that you should do half of the brownie batter, cream cheese mix, then the other half. Or maybe even 2/3 batter, cream cheese mix, then 1/3 brownie batter. Something other than what the recipe called for...or your brownies will look gross too.

Despite the fact that they are not aesthetically pleasing, the taste, good Lord, the TASTE is absolutely fabulous. Sinfully fabulous. The consistency was PERFECT. I baked mine for a total of 46min at 325 degrees.

Oh, and the brownie mix that I used was Ultimate Fudge (it came with a Hershey's packet and melt-away chocolate chips in the batter).

Here's the recipe: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/cream-cheese-swirl-brownies/868896b5-84a3-4c64-af34-58fb5a00470d