CREAM CHEESE CARROT CAKE BLONDIES

I looked through some saved recipes recently and came across this one.  I needed to take a treat for someone and thought this would be a good one to try.  The cream cheese seemed to blend into the batter a little more than I thought it would, but they were still pretty tasty.

CREAM CHEESE CARROT CAKE BLONDIES

1 stick butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup shredded carrots

1/2 cup chopped pecans (if desired)

CREAM CHEESE SWIRL:

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 egg YOLK

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare an 8x8 baking dish with baking spray.  

To make blondies, stir together brown sugar and melted butter until smooth. Add egg  and vanilla and stir to combine.  Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt and stir to combine.  Fold in carrots and pecans if used.  

To make cream cheese swirl, combine softened cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla until smooth.  

Spread half of blondie batter into baking dish.  Spreading out to edges.  Blondie mixture is really thick.  Dollop half of cream cheese mixture on top.  Add remainder of blondie mixture.  Dollop other half of cream cheese mixture.  Take an offset spatula and swirl the mixture to blend.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Cool and cut into squares.