Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

These Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies are incredibly rich, decadent and completely delicious! A fudgy brownie topped with  no bake peanut butter cheesecake, chocolate ganache and my favorite M&M Minis candies!

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Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

I have an unending sweet tooth.  A few weekends ago, my sweet tooth was raging.  I decided it was time to make the cheesecake brownies I had been dreaming of.

When I layered the peanut butter cheesecake over the brownies, it was kind of ugly.  I thought a layer of chocolate ganache would make it prettier and you can never have too much chocolate with your peanut butter.

Of course I couldn’t stop there. I had a package of M&M Minis calling my name.  It would’ve been in my best interest to make these when I had company coming over. They are pretty darn rich but pretty irresistible too.

Baking desserts is one of my favorite things. Getting in the kitchen to bake cookies or brownies just makes me happy.

A few weeks ago I baked about 150 cookies and realized I had been so busy that I hadn’t baked anything that wasn’t for the blog in quite some time.

I baked them for Emmet’s class to enjoy after taking the massive state standardized tests.  The kids get so stressed out over those tests. I just wanted to add a bright spot to their stressful day.

When I went to pick Emmet up from school, his teacher handed me a handful of thank you notes from the kids. It totally made my day. They were so sweet and so cute.

Most of them drew pictures and one of the kids asked if I would write the recipe on the back but that he understood if I didn’t.  That totally cracked me up.

Kudos to the teacher for having the kids take the time to say thank you. Emmet is really lucky to have great teachers this year.  We are down to 2 days left of this school year. Yay for summer!!

Boo for stormy weather. We had tornados in our town this week and it was a little SCARY!  First order of business for summer needs to be adding a storm shelter to our new place.

Our place was right on the edge of the storm and we were watching it closely. The heavy rain and dark clouds moved on and then the sun came out and it started hailing about ping pong ball sized hail.

My husband was watching the storm from the porch when something fell from the sky into the yard. After the hail storm passed, he went to check it out.

It was a couch cushion cover and it was frozen.  Seriously frozen.  It was so crazy.  There’s no telling where it came from.  I’m so thankful that we didn’t have any storm damage and that no one in our area was hurt.

Okay back to these brownies.  You are going to want to make them soon! Let me know if you try them! If you like loaded brownies, give these Walnut Brownies a try and these Chocolate Glazed Brownies are for the classic brownie fans.  For the peanut butter fans, these Easy Peanut Butter Bars are crazy delicious and so simple!

Print Recipe

4.41 from 10 votes

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Inactive Time4 hours hrs 57 minutes mins

Total Time5 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Servings: 12 servings

Author: Milisa

Ingredients

for the brownie layer

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

for the peanut butter cheesecake layer:

• 8 oz softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup whipping cream whipped

for the ganache

• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 10.80 ounce package M&M Minis or other favorite candy

Instructions

• Spray an 8 x 11 1/2 - inch baking pan with non- stick spray and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Combine butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs in a large bowl. Add flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder and salt. Stir until well combined. Pour into prepared pan and bake 18-22 minutes or until brownies are set and just start to pull away from corners of the pan.
• Set aside to cool completely. Place in the refrigerator to speed up the process.
• Add cream cheese, powdered sugar and peanut butter to a mixer bowl and beat until well combined. Fold in whipped cream until well combined. Spread over cooled brownies and place in refrigerator for 2 hours.
• Heat milk chocolate chips and cream over low heat or in microwave just until chocolate chips are melted. Stir until smooth. Spread evenly over chilled peanut butter cheesecake mixture. Top with M&M Minis or favorite candy. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until ganache is set. Cut into small squares for serving.