Red velvet cake, chocolate brownie and cheesecake in a single traybake. It must be Christmas!
No, I haven’t messed with the colour in these photos. The red is just that red!
After the success of last week’s red velvet mini bundt cakes, I was keen to continue the red velvet theme. I came across this recipe for red velvet swirl brownies here on the Food Network website. I’ve made a few little tweaks to the recipe and converted all the amounts for UK readers and other bakers who don’t follow the US cup measuring system.
Ingredients
For the red velvet brownie base:
- 115 g/ 4 oz / 1 stick butter or margarine (plus a little extra for greasing your brownie tin)
- 200 g / 6 oz / 1 cup caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 30 g/ 1 oz / 0.25 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon red food colouring (I’ve had success with Sugarflair’s Extra Red colouring. The normal red colouring you can get in the supermarket just doesn’t get the mixture red enough!)
- 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar (you can use any white vinegar in red velvet cake, just don’t use dark!)
- 2 eggs
- 105 g / 3.5 oz /0.75 cups plain flour
The original recipe also contain 30 g/ 1 oz / 0.25 cup chopped nuts of your choice. I omitted these, but do put them in if you want.
For the cheesecake layer:
- 225 g / 8 oz cream cheese (aka soft cheese)
- 50 g/ 1.5 oz/ 0.25 cup caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 0.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C (160 fan) / Gas Mark 4 / 350 degrees F. Grease and line your brownie tin. My baking tin measures 20 – 25 cm and is fairly shallow. I’ve put a picture of it here below with a teaspoon in the middle so you get an idea of the size. The original recipe recommends using am 8-inch square brownie pan. My brownies did come out rather thin. If you want fatter brownies, use a smaller tin.
Melt the butter in a large bowl. You can do this in a pan over a low heat or, like me, use the microwave. Heat the butter using short bursts (30 seconds at a time), stopping and stirring between bursts until all the butter has melted.
To the melted butter, add the following ingredients in this order, stirring the mixture between each addition:
- sugar
- vanilla
- cocoa powder
- red food colouring
- vinegar.
I used my food mixer, but you can also use a hand-held electric mixer or mix by hand.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, then add them to the rest of your mixture. Fold in the flour gently until all the ingredients are combined in a smooth batter. If you’re going to include nuts, add them now.
Pour about 90% of your mixture into your brownie pan and spread out until it forms a smooth, even layer. Put the remaining 10% red velvet brownie mixture to one side while you make your cheesecake layer.
Mix together the cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla extract until combined. Spread this white mixture over your red velvet brownie layer. If your cream cheese mix is still fairly stiff, it’s best to drop “blobs” of the cream cheese mixture around the surface of the red velvet layer before spreading out to form an unbroken top white layer. If, like me, your cream cheese mix is runny, just pour it slowly over the red velvet layer, making sure you get it into the edges of the tin.
Get your reserved red velvet brownie mixture. Spoon drops of the red mixture on top of the white layer then use a skewer or knife to swirl the red mixture through the white cream cheese layer.

Pre-swirling

Post-swirling
Bake the red velvet swirl brownies for about 30 minutes. Remember that brownies, unlike cake, can still be a little gooey when you take them out of the oven. I waited until the edges of the cream cheese layer started to brown before taking the brownies out.
Leave you red velvet swirl brownies to cool in the tin. When fully cooled, slice and serve!
These are so moreish it’s impossible to eat just one slice!
If you’re looking for more brownie recipes, try:
Jaffa Cake chocolate orange brownies.
Chocolate cheesecake brownies.
After Eight mint chocolate brownies.
The dining halls at my school make these for dessert sometimes and they are SO GOOD. And now I have a recipe and can still have them after I graduate hahaha
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Wow! I’m so impressed by the quality of the dessert options in your dining hall! They’re not that hard to make, so you can have them all the time once you graduate 🙂
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My school has surprisingly good food sometimes haha Those are definitely one of my favorites 🙂
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wow! that looks so impressive will give this a go
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Thank you 🙂
They’re easy to make and bake, and the results are pretty and delicious. I hope they turn out well for you!
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I need this in my life! (says the lady while eating a piece of your jaffa cake chocolate brownie :p)
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Ooo! I love those jaffa cake brownies. I must remember to make them again soon. Or just get some jaffa cakes 🙂
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Yum!!
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They were particularly delicious 🙂
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OMG, Claire…they look so delicious.
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Thank you 🙂
Even though I say it myself, they were absolutely gorgeous! 🙂 I’ll have to make them again before Christmas because this batch vanished in 2 days!
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Sounds and looks delicious, as do all your lovely recipes. It is very red, perfectly festive.
Amanda.
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Thank you.
I’m so pleased with how red they came out. That professional red colouring is amazing! And they were absolutely delicious! 🙂
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Delicious!! I love red velvet cake…and brownies….and cheesecake!! 🙂
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Thank you 🙂 Me too! And there’s just the right amount of cheesecake for it not to be sickly. It’s lovely!
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Wow these look so good and beautiful!
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Thank you! They’re delicious.
And I’m very happy to see you’re on the mend 🙂
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Thanks Claire
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ant to warn you that one of your conversions to American units is wrong – it’s not 4 cups of flour, because two is too much. The cream cheese layer and underbaking counteracted that, and it still tastes good, but I wanted to make sure you knew that it was listed wrong in case there are any other American-based bakers looking at this.
Otherwise, they are very good and I will have to try them again at a later date!
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Ack, the first part got cut off – “Claire, I want”. Sorry about that. 😦
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Thank you for letting me know and sorry about that 😦 I’ll check out the conversion again and update it. Sorry!
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Please don’t worry. As I said, they still tasted good. 🙂
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Oh my God, these look dreamy. I always
Make salted caramel or peanut butter brownies, so thanks for the new ideas 😍
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I was on a bit of a red velvet roll after I finally found a red colouring that worked properly 🙂 Peanut butter brownies sound lovely!
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They are amazing. And I’ll sure be trying out your recipe:) xxxx
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Very tasty! 🙂
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They were lovely and I was delighted with the colour too 🙂
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They really look wonderful!
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