Rich, fudgy low carb, gluten-free brownies swirled with raspberry cheesecake. Yeah, they’re pretty awesome.
We live in an age of instant gratification, my friends, and I daresay it makes society more impatient as a whole. The internet affords us the ability to call up massive amounts of information on virtually any subject we wish to investigate in a few brief sessions. Carrying around mobile devices like smartphones and tablets means that everywhere we go, this information is at our fingertips. I am so very guilty of this impatience for information myself. Case in point, my husband was wearing an article of clothing the other day with various species of sharks all over it, the largest of which was the Megadon. We both wondered whether this was an extant or an extinct species, and about 2 seconds later, I had my answer via my iPad. My thirst for information is a family trait, as I vividly remember my mother wondering aloud about the origins of a word, or who said a particular quote, and heading off to her dictionary/encyclopedia/Bartlett’s to look it up. As long as there is WiFi available, I don’t have to wait nearly so long to satisfy my intellectual curiosity.
Now I happen to be a producer of information on the internet, and the pressure to gratify other people’s curiosity is intense! I made the mistake of mentioning these low carb, gluten-free brownies on Facebook while they were still in the oven and a few readers pounced almost instantly. Where is the recipe? When will the recipe be up? Can you stop making us suffer and give us the darn recipe? Are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet? Complete and utter harassment via Facebook! Cyber-bullying, just to get a recipe! Oh yes, the guilty parties know who they are. And they have broken me, utterly. I am usurping other recipes to get this one up, just to make it stop. Please make it stop!
I jest, of course. I am quite delighted that the sounds of low carb Raspberry Cheesecake Swirl Brownies caught the attention of a few readers so much. I’ve had these in mind for quite some time, as a way to use my homemade, sugar-free raspberry liqueur in a baked good. The problem is that the homemade raspberry liqueur, which I simply adapted from Good Cocktails and made with Swerve Sweetener in place of the sugar, takes a good 6 weeks to mature. I would fear for my life saying that, since these readers are so wild with impatience, but fortunately, the liqueur does not make or break this particular recipe. You could easily swap in a little raspberry extract or flavouring and get the same results. In fact, you could probably skip it altogether and the brownies would still be pretty awesome. But if you can get something to help intensify the raspberry flavour, I’d say go ahead and add it in.
I thought these were an entirely original idea of my own, one I’ve been sitting on for about a month, but the weirdest thing was that I saw some on Pinterest today that looked virtually identical to mine, albeit made with sugar and flour. They had the same somewhat psychedelic swirls of brown and pink as mine do. Just goes to show that there are very few truly original ideas out there. Hardly matters…these brownies are delicious and as tempting as it was to make my Facebook harassers wait for it, I don’t mind pushing other recipes to the side to get these up today. Enjoy!
Raspberry Cheesecake Swirl Brownies – Low Carb and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
Raspberry Cheesecake Layer:
- 1 cup frozen raspberries thawed (do not drain)
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 1/4 cup powdered Swerve Sweetener or other powdered erythritol
- 1 large egg
- 2 tbsp raspberry liqueur OR 1/2 tsp raspberry extract
Brownie Layer:
- 12 tbsp butter
- 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 3/4 cup Swerve Sweetener
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 large eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.
- For the cheesecake layer, puree raspberries and any juice that has accumulated. Place a fine mesh sieve over a bowl, and drain berry puree, pressing on solids to release as much juice as possible. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and powdered erythritol until smooth. Beat in egg until well combined.
- Add raspberry puree and raspberry liqueur or extract and beat until smooth and well mixed. Set aside.
- For the brownie layer, melt butter, chocolate and cocoa powder together in a medium saucepan, stirring until smooth. Stir in erythritol and vanilla extract. Let cool 5 minutes.
- Whisk in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Spread mixture in prepared pan.
- Pour cheesecake layer over top and use a knife to swirl layers together, bringing some of the brownie mixture to the surface.
- Bake 20 to 22 minutes, or until sides are set and the middle is just barely jiggling. Remove from oven and let cool 20 minutes, then refrigerate until set, about 2 hours.
