It will be your lucky day when you have a pan of Irish cream brownies ready to enjoy! A layer of Irish cream infused cream cheese is baked between two fudgy brownie layers, making these a decadent, swoon-worthy treat.
While I’ll never turn down a classic fudgy brownie, I have to admit I have a weakness for over-the-top brownie recipes like cookie butter cheesecake brownies and these rich Irish cream brownies. They have that fudgy brownie factor down pat, but the Irish cream makes them special—the kind of brownie worthy of bringing to a potluck or tucking into tins to share with neighbors.
Why You’ll Love These Irish Cream Brownies
- Cream cheese brownies—but better. Everyone loves cream cheese brownies, but adding Irish cream to the mix truly takes them to the next level. (You’ll also love these Irish cream brownie bites!)
- Brownies for a crowd. One thing that bothers me about most brownie recipes is that you put in all the work for an 8- or 9-inch square pan’s worth of brownies. Not this one. Get out that 9″ x 13″. You’ll have plenty to keep and to share for the holidays!
- Easy to make. Despite their impressive layers, these brownies are surprisingly easy to prepare. If you have experience making brownie recipes, these will be a breeze.
What You’ll Need
Scroll down to the recipe card to find the ingredient quantities and recipe instructions.
For the Brownies:
- Unsalted butter – Learn more: Unsalted or Salted Butter: Which is Better for Baking?
- Unsweetened chocolate – Here’s what you need to know about chocolate for baking.
- Granulated sugar
- Eggs – Let these come to room temperature.
- All-purpose flour – Knowing how to measure flour properly will ensure your brownies have just the right texture.
- Salt
For the Filling:
- Cream cheese – Use full-fat cream cheese; the kind that comes in blocks, not tubs.
- Granulated sugar
- Egg – Egg helps the cream cheese layer set, giving it a cheesecake-like texture.
- Irish cream liqueur
What Is Irish Cream?
Irish cream is a liqueur made by blending cream with whiskey, coffee, chocolate, and vanilla flavors. It infuses desserts with a decadent, boozy twist, and it pairs especially well with chocolate desserts, as in these Irish cream brownies.
How to Make Irish Cream Brownies
- Melt the butter and chocolate. Combine the butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan set over low heat. Gently warm, stirring often, until the butter and chocolate melt smoothly. Set aside to cool.
- Prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a 13″ × 9″ x 2″ baking pan with parchment paper or foil. Lightly coat it with non-stick cooking spray.
- Make the brownie batter. Beat the sugar and eggs in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then gradually add the flour and salt. Fold in the chocolate mixture.
- Make the filling. Use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat the cream cheese and sugar until creamy. Add the egg and Irish cream, then beat until smooth.
- Assemble. Pour half of the brownie batter into the pan. Spread the cream cheese filling on top, followed by the remaining brownie batter.
- Bake. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs.
- Cool. Place the pan on a wire rack and allow the brownies to cool completely, then cut into bars.
Tips for Success
- Know the basics. If you’re new to baking, read over my baking tips for beginners and tips for baking brownies before you get started.
- Let the cream cheese come to room temperature. This ensures that it mixes smoothly and evenly into the other filling ingredients.
- Cut them small. These brownies are quite rich, so cutting them into smaller bars allows for a more manageable serving size. (Don’t worry, you can always grab a second piece!)
Variations
- Make them extra chocolatey. Add mini chocolate chips to the cream cheese layer.
- Marble them. You can swirl the cream cheese into the brownie batter, a la these bourbon cream cheese brownies. Just don’t be too over-zealous in your swirling, or you’ll simply end up with a muddy batter without those distinct ribbons of cream cheese.
- Go nuts. Stir toasted hazelnuts into the brownie batter for an added crunch and nutty flavor.
- Add a chocolate ganache topping. Once the brownies have cooled, you can spread a layer of chocolate ganache on top for an even more decadent treat. (But you may want to cut even smaller squares if you try this one!)
How to Store
Once they’ve cooled and been cut into squares, place the Irish cream brownies in an airtight container and refrigerate them for up to a week.
Can I Freeze This Recipe?
Freeze your Irish cream brownies in an airtight container or freezer bag for up to 3 months. (You can place wax or parchment paper between the layers to keep them from sticking to each other.) Thaw in the refrigerator before serving.
More Recipes With Irish Cream
Irish Cream Brownies
Rich, fudgy brownies surround a sweet layer of cream cheese flavored with Irish Cream in these Irish Cream Brownies.
Ingredients
For the brownies:
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter
- 4 ounces (113g) unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 & 1/2 cups (180g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the filling:
- 16 ounces (454g) cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup (67g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 3 tablespoons (45ml) Irish cream liqueur
Instructions
To make the brownies:
- Place the butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan and melt over low heat, stirring often. Remove from the heat and let cool.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 13" × 9" x 2" baking pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil and lightly coat with a non-stick cooking spray.
- Beat the sugar and eggs together in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until lightened and fluffy (approximately 4 minutes).
- Add the flour and salt gradually, mixing just until combined.
- Fold in the melted chocolate mixture.
To make the filling:
- Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the cream cheese and sugar until creamy.
- Add the egg and liqueur, and beat until smooth.
To assemble:
- Pour half of the brownie batter into the pan. Spread all of the cream cheese filling over the chocolate layer.
- Pour the remaining brownie batter over the cream cheese layer and smooth evenly. Leave the layers as they are, or swirl the top two layers together with a knife for a marbled effect.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs.
- Place the pan on a wire rack, and allow the brownies to cool completely before cutting into bars.
Notes
Recipe slightly adapted from a clipped recipe in my collection. I’m afraid I don’t know the original source.
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33 Comments on “Irish Cream Brownies”
This brownie is so fabulously decadent looking – like an expensive truffle. I used to have a perfect cocoa brownie recipe with a crunchy top..cheap to make and delicious. Never have found one I like as well, but will sure try this.
Oh my… one of the restaurants here in town used to have something similar to this called an avalanche. The center was more of a mousse like texture though, but it was heaven on earth. Those look incredible. I can’t wait to give them a try… I know just the occasion!
By the way… I love the layout of your blog. It’s so simple to get around and very informative.
i totally agree with those first few sentences! there are so many great ideas out there.
Marilyn, your brownies sound delicious!
Kristen, thanks for the compliments! I must give credit to my husband Quinn for the look of the site. I just told him what I wanted, and he got it right on the first try!
Connie, I’m still shuffling holiday ideas in my head even now after all the groceries have been bought. I refuse to brave the stores any more until after Chrismtas.
They look fabulous! So decadent!
I definitely spend way too much time debating over recipes as well, I’ll spend hours looking at things before I finally decide to make the first thing I saw.
Yummy. I love Irish cream. I was just on the Bailey’s site the other day trying to decide what to make with it….these look like a winner.
Jennifer, I have the same “dilemma” here – I go through a lot of print outs from websites and blogs, books and magazines, and everything looks so good I can never decide what to make! 😀
These brownies are fabulous – Bailey’s?? You’ve got to be kidding me. 😀
It’s nice to live vicariously through your site this year Jennifer because it’s two days before Christmas and I haven’t even started any holiday baking! But even though I’m in a baking slump, I LOVE to see what you’ve been up to! I’m going to try to do some marathon cookie baking tomorrow. We’ll see!
mmmm… thanks for the recipe jennifer! i tried them out for my holiday cookie assortment and they were a hit!
Hi Jennifer, I made these last night! I swirled mine because I quickly realized that my layers were not going to look as nice as yours! They looked really nice after they were swirled though. Everyone loved them!
I’m definitely not talented enough to get those perfect layers (I tried but ended up having to swirl because it was a major mess :P). They were delicious, though! Thanks for the recipe.
I just commented on your more recent Monster Cookies post, but I wanted to say that I also printed off this recipe and I used it earlier this week to take these brownies to a departmental party. Oh my goodness, were they a hit! Everyone loved them and each and every bite got snarfed up. They really were pretty easy, and I even got the layers right! (That really surprised me.)
Thanks again for a tasty, fancy-looking, relatively easy recipe. I’ve got a few more printouts from your archives that I intend to put to good use just as soon as I can find an excuse!
Erin, I’m glad they were a success! I wish I had one right now. Good luck with the other recipes.
Jennifer, how important is it to line the pans with tinfoil? It sounds like a big pain! I plan on making a double batch of these this weekend. Thanks for the awesome recipe!! 🙂
Mandy, the aluminum foil makes getting the brownies out of the pan a breeze. I suppose it’s not necessary, but I highly recommend it. It’s really not that hard, though. Basically, I just tear of a piece and press it down into the pan, especially in the corners. If you leave it larger than the pan, it makes little handles for removing the brownies.
If you don’t use it, be sure to coat your pan very well with cooking spray. If you still have a hard time getting them out, turn the pan upside down on a cooling rack or some other surface and let gravity take over.
Good luck! I hope you enjoy them!
Tasty….
The photo is really well done! The three layers of brownie look like they’re just floating there… waiting to be eaten!
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Just made these, and they are superb. I couldn’t get my top layer of brownie batter to spread evenly, so I ended up swirling the whole thing… not as pretty, but still tasty. 🙂
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Absolutely delicious. Made these for staff at work today, St. Paddy’s Day, and everyone loved them. Yummy and not too rich like you would expect just by looking at them. Doubled the recipe and they were gone in no time. Stumbled upon your site and am already looking forward to the next recipe… Thank you for sharing.
These brownies look delicious, and the thought of Irish cream sounds awesome 🙂
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I always benefit from the comments of others. In order to avoid the problems with spreading the filling, I let the cream cheese soften and whipped it like crazy in my stand mixer. When I was finished, the filling was a thinner version of buttercream. I placed dollops strategically over the top and it spread like a dream. I also plopped dollops of the top brownie mixture on the top, once again, strategically placing them to avoid the spreading problem. Ta da! Worked like a charm. The hubs is in the living room asking me, “What’s in the over and when is it coming out?” Hahaha! “Winner, winner chicken dinner” as we say around here.
Ummm….I now have a question. Since the filling is, more or less, a cheesecake, do the leftovers need refrigeration? If I made these during the holidays, I wouldn’t be asking because they’d be gone in a nano-second, but I’m going to have leftovers for at least a day. Thanks so much!
Hi, Claudia. Yes, I’d store any leftovers in the refrigerator.
I made these brownies for St. Patrick’s Day….they are absolutely decadent! Your directions are so easy to follow I enjoy looking through all of your recipes.
That’s great to hear, Angela! 🙂
A quick question
I am trying to figure out an old recipe from a 2003 kids book
Red and yellow bright ideas
It is fudge crisply truffles
Uses a bag of 3 musketeers mini candy bars but doesn’t say the weight or bow many melted with 2 to milk then add 2 1/2c coco puff cereal drop by teaspoon onto wax paper
Any idea how to figure how many candy bars to use
Hi, Patricia! I’m afraid I couldn’t guess. I wouldn’t think that there are that many options for bag sizes, but I don’t know that for sure. You’d likely need to make your best guess and adjust if needed. Good luck!