Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies! Fudgy beet red brownies deliciously swirled with dairy-free cream cheese. Easy, healthy, and holiday perfect!

SPONSORED BY LOVE BEETS

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I don’t know if red velvet counts as officially “christmas-y”, but I do know that when you bring it to the holiday table in Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownie form it IS officially:

• Sweet and swirly.
• Just the right amount of fudgy.
• Classy, but still eat-with-your hands approachable.
• Subtly chocolatey with enough space for the vanilla and tangy lush cheesecake flavors to shine through too.
• Naturally, deliciously, vibrantly RED.
• Easy to make (in the blender!) and hard to share.
• But shareable. Because we are kind people and the holidays are about giving and Christmas is IN TWO DAYS.

How friends, how?? I don’t know where december ran off to, but I do know we’d be better to ponder this over a batch of freshly baked brownies, agreed?

While I sip my coffee and morning snack on a leftover square, let me tell you the brownie backstory.

Red velvet cake – beautiful, classic, fluffy, and usually frosted with cream cheese. Cheesecake brownies – fudgy, rich, less work than cheesecake but more fun than plain ol’ brownies. So this is one of those best of both world situations where we are combining two individually amazing things into one AMAZING thing. The flavors just work, the form is easy, it’s a perfect, festive, meant-to-be mashup of a bite.

On top of all that good fortune, we are swapping traditional flour for cassava so they are grain-free. Using dairy-free yogurt and dairy-free cream cheese for the swirl so they are vegan. And pulling the brilliant red color from beets so they are naturally dyed.

Can we just take a second to appreciate how beautiful these brownies are for containing exactly zero drops of red food coloring. These are 100% beet dyed, but I promise they taste like dessert not vegetable.

And there is no beet roasting required either, because we are using Love Beets already cooked organic beets in combination with their beet powder to achieve that beautiful red hue.

Their organic beets are cooked sous-vide until perfectly tender, then vacuum sealed and stocked in the produce section so all we have to do is cut them open and blend into our batter. We are using just enough pureed beets to keep the brownies moist, but not so much that you will taste the beet flavor. Beet balance.

For extra RED color I added in a quarter cup of their beet powder too, which is made of 100% pure beets and so easy to sneak into baked goods (like these cookies – made, loved, made again already!) All the nutritional benefits of beets are even more concentrated when dried, so brownies and health all in one bite. More cassava flour works too if you don’t have beet powder in your pantry (yet).

The cheesecake swirl is a simple whisking together of yogurt, cream cheese, and maple syrup. I used dairy-free yogurt and cream cheese (both almond milk based), but you could use regular as well. Whatever you prefer. The one tablespoon of maple syrup sweetens the swirl a little bit, but not too sweet we want that contrasting tang.

Swirl, bake, wait for them to cool, and then eat. The cooling is necessary so your brownies aren’t TOO fudgy, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t put mine in the freezer to speed that step up.

Happy swirly brownie baking and holiday devouring to you!

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