Martha Stewart's Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan of cream cheese in baked goods - brownies, cupcake frosting, cake frosting, etc.  That being said, it was only a matter of time before I'd try out Martha Stewart's cream cheese swirl blondies- yum!  This is another recipe from the Martha Stewart Cookies book, which I am slowly making my way through.

Mise en place

The great thing about blondies is that the ingredients are pretty much items that any semi-regular baker would have on hand.  Luckily, with a sale on cream cheese at Harris Teeter recently, I also have a few blocks of cream cheese on hand for these occasions as well, haha. 

The recipe came together easily, but one issue I had was with the consistency of the cream cheese mixture.  I can't blame Martha for bad instructions, because I a) don't own multiple bowls that fit into my stand mixer; and b) was too lazy to wash out the blondie batter bowl to use for the cream cheese mixture.  You can clearly see from the photo below that the hand-mixing method didn't turn out so well- haha.  Also, my attempts at creating a swirl pattern on the chunky cream cheese mixture resulted in a "dirt bike racing track" look that did not melt away in the baking process, ha.  

All that aside, these blondies tasted great, and I loved the addition of cream cheese with the blondie.  My co-workers were not too thrown off by the look of these, and seemed to enjoy them a lot.  If you'd like to add some texture, feel free to add chopped nuts, or whatever else strikes your fancy :o)