Cream Cheese Brownie Day

When thinking of cheesecake, most people’s thoughts go to that creamy colored, tangy bite of feathery goodness with a graham cracker crust. How on earth could that be paired with the fudgy, gooey sweetness of a brownie, without creating a culinary war on the taste buds? Quite easily, in fact! And that wonderful person who was the first to think of it? Well, they may just need to be named as a hero!

Cream cheese, or at least certain forms of it, have been found in culinary records in Europe for hundreds of years. This delicious ingredient was mentioned in England as early as 1583! In France, the earliest records show up about 1651. So clearly, at least in Europe, they have a head start on enjoying that morning cream cheese fix. Made from a combination of milk and cream, what is now recognized today as cream cheese didn’t make its first appearance on the market in the United States until 1873, when it was first mass produced. The product that eventually led to the Philadelphia Brand was introduced by William A. Lawrence. From Chester, New York, he was the dairyman who took this yummy cheese from the farms to the tabletops – and eventually into brownies!