Red velvet brownies with cream cheese frosting

We had a beautiful day yesterday to pick and cut down our Christmas tree!  It was so nice to be able to calmly pick the tree with just a sweatshirt on.  In the past there have been times when I was wearing a heavy sweater, winter coat, hat, gloves, scarf and extra socks and was still freezing because the wind was blowing so hard.  When the weather is like that I always feel like I need to pick our choice so quickly so we can all get back in the car and warm up and half the time I am not satisfied with my choice when I get home.  It goes in the tree stand and I think to myself, did I really pick this tree out? What was I thinking when I picked this one and is this really the tree I picked out? Anyway I am confident that this year that my tree choice is a good one.  When Sam gets home from school in a few weeks I hope she agrees with me.  The day was made much better but a trip to Cracker Barrel which isn't close to our house but is very close to where we cut the Christmas tree down.   They make the best chicken fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy ever.

Kathryn and I made these last night for a party she was going to.  These are adapted from howsweeteats.com.  We don't really like white chocolate so we decided to make cream cheese frosting instead.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1-1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp red food coloring

frosting
4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
4 oz unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar

Spray a 8x8 cake pan with PAM.  Preheat oven to 350.

In a small bowl combine cocoa powder, red food coloring and 1 tsp vanilla to create a paste.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, then add the remaining teaspoon of vanilla.  Wiht the mixer on medium speed, add in cocoa powder mixture.  Beat the batter until completely red.  If you want your red deeper you can add more food coloring at this time. Add flour and salt mixing until just combined.

Spread in pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool at least an hour before frosting.

To make the frosting combine the cream cheese, butter and confectioners sugar in a mixer and blend until smooth and creamy.  Frost brownies and cut into servings. 

Enjoy!  Susan