Open Source Cook

Here is a recipe my sister wanted to share with everyone.  The original recipe came from Kathy Tarkiewicz.  She made it last night - very yummy! This was yummy! The brownies are not very thick - they were a good size, however, i think when i make it again, i will double the ingredients - possibly. Jay even liked the brownies and he typically does not like anything else in brownies. It is a bit rich as well. Let me know what you think if/when you make this.

Ingredients
50 Light Caramels (14oz. bag)
2/3 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup chocolate chips, melted
1 pkg. German Chocolate Cake Mix
3/4 cup margarine, melted (1-1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional - we didn’t add them)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour 9×13 pan.
2. Melt caramels over low heat with 1/3 cup of evaporated milk. Set aside.
3. Combine cake mix, 1/3 evaporated milk, margarine, and nuts. Stir until dough sticks together. Press 1/2 of dough into pan (reserve the rest for the top).  Bake for 6 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and spread melted chocolate chips over cooked dough. Spread caramel mixture over chocolate chips. Bake 15-18 minutes. Cool slightly and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

So I came across this recipe in one of the Pampered Chef recipe booklets and, since I might have to make it at a party, I decided to try it as one of the treats being made this weekend.

The recipe turned out alright, but there were a few things the recipe said should happen that I did have to modify as I went. The first being the cooking time. Now this is kind of important and I’m not sure what went wrong. According to the recipe, it should only bake for 20-22 minutes. Yet, I had them brownies in the oven for a good 40 minutes before they came out according to the recipe. Of course, this meant that the edges were a little darker and crispier than intended, but I’m not sure if it was due to my pan or the recipe creator’s concept of time. The recipe calls for the large bar pan that Pampered Chef sells, and if it’s the one I’m thinking it is, it’s also a piece of stoneware, which might mean that the brownies would take a shorter amount of time to cook. If that’s true, then using my glass cake pan probably increased the time. So, I’m not changing the time in the directions simply because I’m not sure why there’s a difference.

One thing I completely forgot about that may have made a big difference, I’m not sure if I made cake-like brownies or fudge-like brownies. If I made the fudge-like brownies, then I think I can see why it took longer to bake. The brownie mix box didn’t give me the two different ingredient list, so I think I’m going to try a different brand than Ghiradella, just to see if this was what made the difference in cooking times.

The other change I noticed was the “drizzling chocolate”. Microwaving the chocolate and caramel pieces (I used Rollo’s) did melt the mixture, but it really didn’t make it into something that could be drizzled. So I ended up heating the mixture on the stove with a little milk thrown in. Once I did this, the drizzling effect was easy. That is one thing I am going to change in the directions. Instead of microwaving the 1/2 cup chocolate and caramels for a minute (stirring every 20 second intervals), I’m just going to say to heat it up on the stove until it’s melted.

For the rest of the recipe, it was actually really good. I got the Ghiradella Dark Chocolate brownie mix and who were the brownies tasty. I’ve never thought of adding brown sugar to brownies before, but I like what it did. I haven’t come across any of the hidden surprises yet, but I’ve been snacking along the edges. Overall, though, I like this and I would make it again. I might play with it a bit though.

Ingredients:
1 pkg (12oz) semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided or 2 cups chocolate chips
1 pkg (18-21oz) brownie mix (plus ingredients to make cake like brownies)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar, divided
1 cup pecans (changed from salted mix nuts)
5 rolls milk chocolate-covered chewy caramels, unwrapped, divided (40 pieces total)
Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly brush cake pan with vegetable oil. Chop 1-1/2 cups of the chocolate morsels. In a bowl, combine the brownie mix, water, oil, eggs, and 1/4 cup brown sugar; mix well. Fold in chopped chocolate; pour batter into pan, spreading evenly.
2. Chop nuts. Combine half of the nuts and remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar; sprinkle evenly over brownie batter. Bake 20-22 minutes (could be longer) or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
3. Meanwhile, cut 16 caramels into quarters. Place remaining 1/2 cup chocolate morsels in microwave safe bowl; microwave on HIGH 1 minute or until melted, stirring after each 20-second interval. Spoon melted chocolate into resealable plastic bag; set aside.
4. Remove pan from oven and set aside to cool. Immediately press remaining 24 caramels evenly into brownie in four rows of six caramels each. Sprinkle quartered caramels and remaining nuts over brownies. Trim corner of chocolate-filled bag and drizzle chocolate evenly over brownies. Cut into squares; serve warm and with ice cream if desired.

Nutritional Information: 300 calories; 16g total fat; 4.5g saturated fat; 25mg cholesterol; 38g carbohydrate; 3g protein; 135mg sodium; 2g fiber

Guess what I found….a recipe to make brownies from scratch and I had all the ingredients on hand. This is good news and bad news. The good news: I can make brownies whenever I want. I always have these ingredients on hand at home (well, minus the marshmallows and nuts). The bad news: I can make brownies whenever I want.

Since I found the recipe, I decided to make some rocky road brownies. Jesse had been going on and on about rocky road brownies, ice cream, etc all day, so I figured why not. I did make a few changes to the recipe. For instance, I doubled the amount of chocolate chips that were melted because it just didn’t seem like enough to me. However, since I doubled the chocolate, I didn’t mess with the flour and this caused it to be a little more fudgy in the middle than what I had intended. So I doubled the amount of flour as well. The fudgy center wasn’t really a bad thing, but it did change the texture a little. Regardless of this, the brownies came out really good. They were so good, that the majority of them were gone before I could get a picture of them. So this is what you get.

The one thing I will caution you about this recipe is the chocolate chips and marshmallows on top.  Too many chocolate chips is actually a bad thing for this recipe because it’ll drown out the marshmallows.  So don’t go nuts adding the chips.  Jesse doesn’t think the chips on top were needed at all, so use your own judgment on this.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup chocolate chips
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 marshmallows

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease an 8×8 baking pan; set aside. In a medium saucepan melt butter and 1/2 cup chocolate chips over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, beat lightly just till combined. Stir in flour and nuts.
3. Spread batter in prepared baking pan. Bake in oven for 30 minutes.
4. Immediately sprinkle 1/4 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup marshmallows evenly over brownies. Bake an additional 3 minutes or until marshmallows are just beginning to brown and chocolate is melted.

I love anything mint, so what better brownie to make than one that incorporated york peppermint patties?

The first thing I will say about this is you need to refrigerate the York peppermint patties at least 24 hours before making this. Cutting them up was a little interesting and they all stuck together so it made sprinkling them over the top a little difficult.

When I first made these brownies (before adding the York Peppermint patties), we found that the brownies were a little too fudgy so I doubled the flour amount.  Now that I had doubled the flour amount, the brownies came out a little too cake like.  So now I’m thinking that while I do need to increase the flour amount, I didn’t need to increase it as much as I did.  The original recipe had 3/4 cups, this time around I used 1-1/2 cups, so I’m thinking that 1 cup of flour will do the trick.

Another problem we came across was the york peppermint patties.  Sprinkling them on top and then baking the brownies really didn’t work all that well.  It worked, but the patties ended up getting hard and they were’nt really that chewy.  So next time, I’m planning on mixing the patties straight into the batter and baking that way.  If that doesn’t work, then I’m going to take a step from the Rocky Road Brownies and sprinkle them on top and then bake them for 3-5 mintues after the brownies have had a chance to bake.  I may make these again this week to see if this works, but I’m not sure yet.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup chocolate chips
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cups all-purpose flour
8oz of York Peppermint Patties, chopped into pieces - chilled

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8×8 baking pan; set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan melt butter and 1/2 cup chocolate chips over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, beat lightly just till combined. Stir in flour.
3. Spread batter in prepared baking pan.  Sprinkle top of batter with chopped up York Peppermint patties
4. Bake in oven for 30 minutes.