Talk about a tempting centerfold... This recipe was inspired by the center pic in some of our recent junk mail. The picture not only looked tasty, I had most of the ingredients on hand. In terms of being a fan of cheesecake, I'd put myself on the lower end of the scale. There just doesn't seem to be enough mixture of flavors for my well-seasoned pallet (ha!). Well, this puppy did the trick. And, it was actually the first time I tried to convert from English weights (grams) to US measurements (cups). I've been advised that converting is a bad idea and that it never turns out quite right, but with a little creative flare added, I think I did a good job (I'll just reduce the amount of cocoa that I mistakenly doubled for our dessert-whoops!).

Ingredients:
Brownie Base
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips, or 3.5 oz
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs

Cheesecake Topping
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 pkg (8oz) cream cheese
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300F

Grease a spring-form pan (ours was about 7inches in diameter). Take a piece of foil and wrap the base of the pan because it will cook sitting in a roasting pan of water to keep the cheesecake from cracking. You're basically water-proofing the bottom of the spring-form pan.

Melt butter and chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave and mix together. Then add dry ingredients and finally the eggs.

Spread the brownie mixture in the bottom of the pan.

Mix together cheesecake topping ingredients in another bowl. Spoon over the brownie mixture in the pan.

Place the filled and foil-bottomed spring-form pan into a roasting pan. Fill the pan with about a half inch of water. The cake pan should be sitting in "the bath".

Bake for 1 hour or until the cheesecake is set around the edges. Turn off the oven and let the cake sit in the oven until the oven cools. I let ours sit for about 45min. This keeps the cheesecake from cracking.

You can decorate the top with drizzled, melted chocolate or shaved chocolate bits.

Dig in, it's divine. The best centerfold ever.