caramel brownie slice

Hypothesis: Mexican muchachos and mariachi are most merry when many options are presented for dessert.
Scene: The Bean's Birthday Party.
There had been chicken skewers and spicy rice, lentil salad and chillied beans, cumin rich mince and fried noodles (because every mass feed party we have involves noodles of some sort). And now, dessert. I had the cake at the ready, made four batches of profiteroles and mum had done a platter of cold jellies. One more thing was needed. But what? Not cake. Not pastry. Something that could be picked up and popped into an open mouth without drama, but nothing that was already on the dessert menu. And then there was an "Ahhhh" and after that, an "Ooooh!" and we were good to go.

I was in such a mad rush at the party itself that I didn't manage to snap a shot of the presentation. We cut this slab up into 2cm x 4cm pieces and popped them in coloured patty pans. These were then placed in huge straw baskets and handed out willy nilly. And the leftovers? There weren't many of them, and those we did manage to squirrel away for ourselves were gone the very next day.

caramel brownie slice
(adapted from COOK by the Australian Women's Weekly)

ingredients:

for the brownie base

200g butter
50g (½C) cocoa powder
440g (2C) brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
225g (1½C) plain flour

for the caramel centre

185g butter
110g (½C) caster sugar
2 tbs golden syrup
180ml (¾C) sweetened condensed milk

for the topping

200g dark eating chocolate
1 tbs vegetable oil

method:

1. First things first. Get yourself a pan. 25cm square will do the trick. Got it? Ok. Now line it with greaseproof paper. Seriously now, I wouldn't make you do this unless you really had to. And you do have to, unless you fancy eating this straight from the tin.

adding sugar to the butter & cocoa mix

2. Onto the brownie. Chop the butter up into cubes and dump them in a saucepan. Add all of the cocoa and heat slowly, until it becomes a lovely chocolatey viscous goo.

3. Leave the heat on low and measure your brown sugar out (if you're using cup measures, make sure you pack the sugar in tightly). Dump it in the cocoa mix and stir around until the sugar is all melted into the chocolatey goo (how I love saying those words!) Remove from heat.

adding the flour into the mix

4. Your mix may look just a little bit grainy at this stage. Beat your eggs lightly and then stir them into the pot of chocolate until well combined. Ditto the vanilla. Your mix won't look even a little bit grainy anymore. It will, however, taste fantastic. Just in case you're wondering.

5. Measure out your flour and stir it into the pot (yes! that same pot!) until it is all combined and lovely and there are no lumps of flour left lying around for gross flavour surprises later.

brownie base ready for baking

6. Scoop the lot into your well lined, well greased tin (because you followed step 1 right?) and stick it in a 150C oven for about 20 minutes.

making the caramel layer

7. Do your washing up and then start on the caramel layer. Chop that butter up too, then add all of the ingredients for the caramel into a pot and stir over a low heat until the butter is all melted.

golden and cooked

8. Turn the heat up now (just a little bit) and stir the mix until it reaches a lovely caramel colour. If you're using honey as a substitute for golden syrup, this will take about 20 min and it won't be as thick. A recipe using golden syrup should take 10 mins to go lovely and brown.

9. Tip the caramel mix over the (now extracted and cooled) brownie base and spread it out as evenly as you can. I find using a hot knife quite effective for these purposes.

10. Melt the remaining chocolate and cool it down. Once it hits touch temperature, stir the oil through and spread this over the top of the caramel layer. Refrigerate until set for a tasty treat.

all doneskis!