Makes 16, 2-inch Brownies -- add food coloring (like yellow and red) to make it seasonal!

Cream Cheese Filling

• 4 ounces cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces
• ½ cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Brownie Batter

• ⅔ cup (3 1/3 ounces) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine (Giaredehli or Hershey's)
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9" square baking pan

Cream Cheese Mixture

First make the cream cheese mixture. Microwave cream cheese until soft, about 20 to 30 seconds. Whisk in sour cream, sugar, and flour. Set aside.

Brownie batter

Whisk sugar, eggs, and vanilla together in medium bowl.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in bowl and set aside.

Microwave chocolate and butter in bowl at 50 percent power, stirring occasionally, just until melted, 1 to 2 minutes.

Add melted chocolate mixture and whisk until incorporated; set bowl used to melt the chocolate aside – you’ll need this later. Add flour mixture and fold to combine.

Construction and baking

Transfer 1/2 cup batter to bowl used to melt chocolate. Spread remaining batter in prepared pan.

Spread cream cheese filling evenly over batter.

Microwave bowl of reserved batter until warm and pourable, 10 to 20 seconds. Using spoon, dollop softened batter over cream cheese filling, 6 to 8 dollops. Using knife, swirl batter through cream cheese filling, making marbled pattern, 10 to 12 strokes, leaving 1/2-inch border around edges.

Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out with few moist crumbs attached, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. A tester should come out mostly clean, but do not over-bake (beyond 45/50 minutes) Let cool in pan on wire rack for 1 hour.

Remove brownies from pan. Return brownies to wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour. Cut into 2-inch squares and serve.

Modified Cook's Illustrated recipe, cribbing from Heather Homemade