Party Brownies

You'll Need the Following

• 1 box of brownie mix


• Coffee (or water)


• Eggs


• Vegetable oil


• Anything else the box calls for, like butter


• Chocolate chips or other additives


• Cream cheese at room temperature


• Powdered sugar


• Vanilla extract


• Fresh fruit or jam/jelly/preserves

So note how there aren't amounts on any of that? Because each box mix calls for its own ratios and ingredients depending on what they put in the dry mix. So we'll get to how much you need of what in the next section.

Cooking Instructions

1. Look at your box mix and make sure you have everything needed for it. The one I was working with for the latest iteration just needed some veggie oil, water, and eggs.


2. Now here's where we get to ratios. First, even out your water and oil ratio; this box called for 1 cup oil and 1/2 cup water so I made it 3/4 cup of each. Second, I replaced the water with room temperature coffee from the pot this morning. Coffee really brings out the chocolate flavor and unless someone is hyper sensitive 3/4 of a cup spread over a 13x9 inch pan of brownies isn't going to hurt. But using water is fine if you don't want to use coffee. Finally the eggs, which it calls for 4 of - my rule of thumb is for every 2 eggs (rounded down) add an extra egg yolk. So with 4 eggs I added 2 extra yolks.


3. Throw that all together in a big bowl and mix it until smooth. If you're adding some chocolate chips add them in and mix again. I use an electric hand mixer, but a whisk or wooden spoon or whatever is just fine as long as you don't have any dry mix left when you're done.


4. Grease up your pan. I used cooking spray and a 13x9 inch pan but you can do 8x8 or 9x9 or whatever size you want. Just make sure you use butter or cooking spray or something so it won't stick.


5. Bake for as long as it says to on the box. Mine says for a 13x9 pan 44-47 minutes so I did 45. I always use the lower end just in case, because you can bake something for a bit longer if it's not quite done but you cannot fix it once it's burnt to a crisp.


6. Take the brownies out when they're done so they can cool, then work on the topping by mixing the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract together. My rule of thumb here is 8oz of cream cheese at room temp, 1 cup powdered sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. In this case for a 13x9 pan I doubled it. Cover with a bit of plastic wrap and set aside but DO NOT put it back in the fridge.


7. Once the brownies are cool enough that you can touch the pan without burning yourself spread the topping on, then grab your fruit and add that. Fresh fruit sprinkled on top, especially raspberries, is always a hit at parties. But in this case we didn't have any fresh fruit so I used some blackberry jelly we had in the fridge; microwave for 10 seconds at a time until it's relatively liquid, stir to get a clean consistency, then either dollop or drizzle over the top of the cream cheese topping.


8. Put the pan back in the fridge at this point for a few hours to let the cream cheese return to a more solid state, and the jelly if you went that route.

Once the topping is set, cut the brownies up and enjoy! I make these for most parties I go to as my go-to dessert and they're so good everyone always asks how I make them so I figured I'd make the recipe public ^{^}