Monday 17 March 2014

Caramel and pecan brownies

Moving house is not easy. Nope.

It's even more difficult when you have a little Snugglebug you'd rather be spending time with instead of packing.

Plus you don't get any down time. As soon as Snugglebug is asleep we are busy packing and bubble wrapping and taping everything. You know what that means? No time to bake :-(

A couple of nights ago, the taste tester wanted dessert. Usually I have a couple of dessert slices in the freezer for such 'emergencies', but this time we were all out.

This was the best opportunity to convince him that I would bake. Ten minutes!!! That's all I asked for. Usually 'ten minutes' in the kitchen means half an hour but this time it actually meant eight. That's right. EIGHT minutes to whip up the batter for the yummiest brownies ever.

I then stuck it in the oven and ran for my shower.
It was in the oven for precisely sixteen minutes!!!
They came out hot and gooey and yummy and amazingly perfect. When cooled, they were firm enough to cut in to little squares.
Remember, the best brownies are ready just as soon as they go past the 'undercooked' stage. The skewer should still have moist crumbs when inserted.

The amount of sugar in these is not as much because of the caramel. It had to balance out otherwise it would be way too sweet!






(The taste taster has declared these to be some of the worst pictures I have taken! Oh well :-P )

Ingredients:

-almost 3/4 cup butter
-1/2 cup cocoa powder
-2 eggs beaten
-1/4 cup sugar
-1/2 cup flour
-1 tsp vanilla essence
-1/2 tsp salt
-4 tablespoons Dulce de leche
-100grams pecans chopped

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Line a baking dish with grease proof baking paper. I just cut a large sheet of the paper and crumple it into a ball as run in under water and then squeeze the water out. The open it up and line the dish that you are using. An eight inch tray would be good for this. The smaller the tray, the thicker the brownies and the longer the baking time.

Melt the butter in the microwave.

In a bowl, combine the cocoa powder with the melted butter completely.
Add in the sugar and stir.
Then add in the beaten eggs and stir till totally combined.
Add in the flour, vanilla essence and salt and stir to combine completely till you can't see any lumps of flour.

Fold in the pecans.
Pour the batter on to your baking dish.

Heat up the Dulce de leche slightly in the microwave till it's runny.

Pour it all over the brownie batter and swirl it around with a fork.

Stick it in the oven and let it bake for about fifteen minutes. It's ready once the skewer inserted has moist crumbs.

Serve it warm with ice cream while the caramel is still yummy and melty.

MmmMmmm

Enjoy :-)

-S