I love to eat luscious wild juicy blackberries right off the long curved green branches. They’re so delicious when fresh. I love cheesecake of all delicious flavors. I love soft gooey chocolatey brownies. And, I LOVE this triple crown Blackberry Cheesecake Brownie Bar. It has all these wonderful flavors layered from the brownie on the bottom to the vanilla cheesecake in the middle to the blackberry sauce baked into the cheesecake on top.
When you have blackberries ripening in your very own backyard, it’s a special treat to walk just a few feet from the back door to pluck fresh blackberries off the branches every couple of days. This year, with a 20 foot by 20-foot area housing my blackberry canes, I’ve been able to pick a few quarts every couple of days for three weeks, with another three more weeks of plucking to go.
I have absolutely no problem with the long thorns on the long canes or the gnats. I’ve had a lot of practice since I was a little kid picking them in my parents’ deep thick woods, climbing over fallen trees and avoiding prickly nettles. I learned early on from Mom just how to curl my hands around and beyond the briars to capture the delicious purple rewards. The gnats? Never bothered me. Just ignore them.
The best part is…can you guess what the big plus to all these wild blackberries is? They’re FREE! One summer I noticed a lot of birds kept perching on my flower garden trellises. Of course, they were not just sitting there, but using my flower bed as a “dropping off” space. The next summer I noticed a number of blackberry canes growing under the trellises. Hmmmm…I wonder how that happened.
I loved blackberries. So, why not allow the blackberry canes to overtake this flower garden since I had 5 other flower beds of perennials in the yard. So, I moved some of these perennials to other gardens and let the blackberry canes flourish.
By the next year we had a bed of beautiful white blackberry buds and then blossoms, and weeks later a number of gorgeous blackberries to eat – enough for a few breakfasts and one big pie. The following summer there were even more. Last year the blackberry canes were so full of that luscious dark purple fruit.
This spring I took time to count the green berries on 3 different long canes in the spring – yes, silly, I know. But I wanted to get an idea of what the canes were producing. On one cane I counted 20 clumps of berries with 10-11 berries in every single group. The next cane had 32 groups of 10-12 green berries. The third cane had 35 clumps of 9-13 berries. So, just those three canes were ready to produce around 1,000 or more lip-smacking juicy purple berries!
And, how many of those berries do the birds eat? I’m sure quite a few – we easily share them with the beautiful Cardinals, Robins, Sparrows, Bluebirds and Cedar Waxwings.
Our little patch provides enough fresh blackberries for breakfast and for me to freeze to later create pies, cheesecakes, jam, ice cream sauce, berry cobblers…and these delicious Blackberry Cheesecake Brownie Bars.
Enjoy this yummy recipe. We certainly do.
This recipe offers 9-16 good sized bites of Blackberry Brownie Cheesecake Bars, depending on how you cut them.
Prepare your 8”x8” baking pan:
-Lightly butter the bottom and sides of the pan.
-Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit.
-Lightly butter the parchment paper on the bottom and sides.
-This preparation will make it easy to lift the entire brownie cheesecake after it’s baked and cooled.
Preheat your oven to 325F degrees.
Gather up the Blackberry Swirl Topping Ingredients:
2 C Blackberries, fresh or frozen
½ C Sugar
¼ C Water
¼ t Vanilla extract
Gather the Brownie layer Ingredients:
1 ¼ C Butter, melted
1 ½ C Sugar
2 Eggs
1 T Vanilla extract
½ t Salt
¾ C Cocoa powder
½ C Flour
Gather the Cheesecake layer Ingredients:
8 oz Cream cheese, soft
¼ C Sour cream
1 Egg
2 t Vanilla extract
¼ C Sugar
½ t Salt
Cook up the Blackberry Swirl Topping:
-In a medium saucepan, cook the blackberries, sugar, water for
5-6 minutes, breaking up the berries. It will not be very thick.
-Strain the berries through a sieve, saving the seedless sauce in a bowl.
-Add the vanilla extract and stir well to combine.
-Cool to room temperature. Set aside.
Mix, but do NOT bake the brownie layer:
-In a medium heat safe bowl, microwave the butter just until melted. Do not simmer or boil.
-Stir in the sugar to combine well, so the mixture is room temperature.
-Add the eggs and vanilla extract and stir to combine completely. (Do not add the eggs until the mixture has come close to room temp.)
-Sift in the flour, cocoa powder and salt.
-Stir to combine but do not overmix.
-Pour the brownie mixture into the prepared baking pan, spreading it evenly across and back and forth in the pan.
-Set aside.
Mix the cheesecake layer:
-In a medium mixing bowl with an electric beater, beat the soft cream cheese and sour cream until smooth. Scrape down the sides periodically.
-Add the egg, sugar and salt and beat for 2-3 minutes until well combined. Be sure to scrape down the sides periodically or you could end up with a lumpy cheesecake layer.
Assemble and bake your Blackberry Cheesecake Brownies:
-With an offset spatula, spread the cheesecake mixture evenly from edge to edge and corner to corner.
-Drop dollops of the Blackberry Swirl Topping over the cheesecake layer.
-To create a beautiful purple design, use a knife or another thin pointed kitchen utensil to swirl the blackberry sauce around in the cheesecake. Take care not to slice down into the brownie layer.
-Bake your beautiful Blackberry Cheesecake Brownie at 325F degrees for one hour. I check it at the 50-minute mark to make sure it’s not browning too much. Your creation is done baking when it’s light golden on the edges and a little jiggly in the middle. Don’t let it get too brown or it can be too dry inside.
-Let the dessert cool in the pan out of the oven. It will continue to bake in the warm pan.
-Serve with ice cream, whipped cream and/or drizzles of more blackberry sauce. Enjoy!
Storage:
-I keep this dessert in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
-It can also be frozen for up to a month. I keep it in the original pan and wrap it in plastic wrap, then into a zipper bag. -Thaw it in the refrigerator before serving it. (Thawing it at room temp may cause it to condense, creating a layer of moisture on top of the cheesecake.)
-Grab and Go Slices: I have also stored individual bars in the freezer by wrapping them separately. Then, store it in a zipper bag. When you’re craving a taste, grab a bar and enjoy.
This is a delicious fresh blackberry dessert easy to share with friends and family. Add more blackberry sauce to enhance the blackberries in the cheesecake. It’s a great combo with the dark brown bottom brownie bar.
However or whoever you enjoy these Blackberry Cheesecake Brownie Bars with, “Bake your very own Memories!”
Comments