Cheesecake Brownies!

I got a new brownie pan from a friend for Christmas and wanted to try it out. So I made this recipe! It turned out so great.

Dark Brownie Ingredients:
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Cheesecake Layer Ingredients:
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 8 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°F. To make the brownie layer, mix the sugar, cocoa, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl. Gradually add flour and salt. Then blend in the butter. Add chopped nuts if desired. Set batter aside.

In a separate mixing bowl (medium to large) combine the cream cheese, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and vanilla. Mix until smooth.

Coat a 9x13 pan with butter and flour. Pour the cream cheese mixture in the bottom of the pan and then spread the brownie mixture on top. Unising a knife, swirl the top layer to create a marble effect. Bake at 325°F for 40-45 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 15 minutes.

These are best served warm.

First Full Semester of Graduate School!

I have made it through my first full semester of Graduate school...AND I have a 4.0! I would say that equals SUCCESS! Next semester may be a little more difficult as I venture in to writing my first three chapters and proposing before my commitee!

End of the semester is here and this is my final assignment for ETEC5213. We were asked to create a recorded message discussing the differences between downloadable audio files and podcasts. Audacity is a free recording software and very simple to use. There are also tutorials available for using many of the tools within the program. I simply recorded the message and then imported an mp3 music file to lay in behind my recording. I then exported the file into an mp3. When downloading Audacity you are prompted to also downloaded "LAME for Audacity" which allows you to change from the ".aud" to a ".mp3". The hardest part of this post was making sure the mp3 was available on my blog. Earlier int he semester we learned HTML coding which became very useful this week! A couple times, when i previewed my post the mp3 player was not present. FRUSTRATING!!!! But then I figured out that I was missing a forward slash and the file name was not capitalized! Simple things most of us would overlook! At least the problems were minor! While preparing this assignment I had an idea. Ag teachers are constantly training teams for contests. Creating recordings of oral reasons would be a great study tool for these students. Almost ALL students have an mp3 player and could learn to give reasons by simply listening to old sets. They could even take notes on the format and similarities and differences between the different files in order to create a format for them to follow. Also, if you added a visual component, you could recorded classes and create promotional videos for your FFA chapter! If you would like instructions on how I completed this assignment please leave a comment and I would be glad to share!