Back to school, back to waking up to an alarm clock, back to earth with a bump! This week I am pretty busy with planning and creating - and in need of a bit of time to myself without having to entertain young children, but I always miss them when the house is so quiet. I have a couple of batches of birthday cupcakes for friends this week and have been working on the decorations for my very first (yes, I said very first - eek!) wedding cake due in a couple of weeks time. These things always challenge me but that's good, right?
So we have arrived mid-week and I hadn't even had a moment to contemplate blog baking this week - but then I found a lovely looking recipe for Dulce De Leche Brownies from Butter Baking which was adapted in turn from David Lebovitz. My go-to recipe for chocolate brownies has always been Hummingbird Bakery's but I loved the sound of the dulce de leche with Lebovitz's version. Now this recipe suggests it makes nine to twelve brownies. I took one bite and I'm honestly not sure who could make it through an entire one of these as they are super-rich and very sweet - but cut up into one-bite brownies they are kind of cute and do-able (although I served the boys a brownie bite with ice cream for dessert tonight and they wanted one, then another, then another...I think faced with a whole big one, it's too much but sitting in front of a plate of little ones, you want to keep eating and eating them!)
The recipe is very straightforward and although I've used David Lebovitz's recipe, I added the digestive biscuits that Natasha (Butter Baking) included in her version as I thought they may cut through the intense chocolate. The brownie mix is simple to make but it does make a very heavy, thick mixture which is trickier to spread - so once you add the base of biscuits and dulce de leche and then have to spread the brownie mix on top, it takes a little moulding and was very reminiscent of plastering! But totally worth it as the resulting brownies were squidgy, chocolatey and very yummy :)
Dulche De Leche Brownies (recipe from David Lebovitz & Butter Baking)
Ingredients
- 115G BUTTER
- 170G DARK CHOCOLATE
- 25G COCOA POWDER
- 3 LARGE EGGS
- 200G SUGAR
- 1 TSP VANILLA EXTRACT
- 140G PLAIN FLOUR
- 6 DIGESTIVE BISCUITS (CRUSHED)
- 1 CUP DULCE DE LECHE
Method
- Line an 8 inch (20cm) square pan with aluminium foil and grease the bottom and sides (I greased my pan and lined it with baking parchment).
- Melt the butter in a medium pan. Add the chocolate and stir constantly over a low heat until the chocolate has melted.
- Remove from the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth.
- Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition.
- Then stir in the sugar, vanilla and flour.
- Sprinkle half of the digestive biscuits over the base of the pan and then add half of the brownie mix, spreading the mix evenly over the whole base.
- Then using half of the cup quantity, drop teaspoonfuls of the dulce de leche across the brownie mix, evenly spacing it.
- Sprinkle the remaining half of the biscuits over the mixture and then spread the remaining brownie mixture evenly across the pan.
- Finally, add the remaining dulce de leche in teaspoonfuls and swirl it lightly with the brownie mix.
- Start by baking it for 25 mins but it could take up to 45 mins (the two recipes have different timings). You're looking for the centre to feel just slightly firm and then remove them from the oven. My brownies took 30 mins.
- Allow to cool in their tin and then cut up into whichever size brownie chunks you think you can handle!