Divine Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins & A Giveaway #DivineInNYC

Chocolate is my weakness. If there was an AA group for it, I would be a member for life. Now that the holidays are here, its even worse. It's everywhere! I was excited when I was asked to review Divine Chocolate, a pioneering Fair Trade brand. Its is the only Fair Trade chocolate brand that is 45% owned by its farmers. While Fairtrade ensures farmers receive a better deal for their cocoa and additional income to invest in their community, company ownership gives farmers a share of Divine’s profits and a stronger voice in the cocoa industry. When the package arrived, I was more than thrilled!

Since I'm not great in the kitchen, I decided to try something simple because I was eager to use one of these amazing bittersweet chocolate baking bars. My son loves chocolate as well so I figured making some chocolate cheesecake muffins would be best for us to try & work together on. It was a bit of task since our mixer wasn't cooperating with us so I had to opt to use the blender. The cheesecake mix looked so pretty.

My little helper prepared the muffin pans with liners while I manually whipped the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Whew who knew baking was so much work!

I have to say they didn't come out too bad. I'm sure I missed something but the chocolate tasted so good! We even licked the bowl.

Here's the recipe for you to enjoy! (Recipe by www.pillsburybaking.com was inspiration)
Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
2 (3oz) packages cream cheese softened
1 large egg
1 5.3oz Divine bittersweet baking bar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
1/4 Divine baking cocoa
1 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Heat oven to 350 F. Line 24 medium muffin cups with paper baking cups. Beat 1/2 cup sugar and cream cheese in large bowl until smooth. Beat in egg until smooth. Stir in chocolate; set aside.
Beat remaining ingredients in large bowl on high speed 3 minutes. Reserve 1 1/2 cups batter.
Fill each muffin cup 1/3 full. Spoon 1 tablespoon cream cheese mixture onto batter in each cup. Top each cup with reserved batter.
Bake 30 -35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool. Store in Refrigerator.

We enjoyed eating the rest of the bars. My favorite was the Milk Chocolate with Toffee & Sea Salt. What a great combo! 

To purchase Divine Chocolate please check out their site.

Divine Chocolate has been generous to offer a wonderful basket of heavenly goodies to 3 BoyzRuleOurWorld readers! Giveaway open to US only. Giveaway ends 11/30/12 11:59pm. Winners will be notified by email and must respond within 48 hours. Divine Chocolate is responsible for delivery of prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway