Ultimate Stuffed Brownies

I love a good brownie.  A good brownie is moist and chewy.  I hate cake brownies with frosting.  If I wanted to eat cake, I would have gotten a piece of cake, not a brownie.  So I have been working on my ultimate brownie recipe.  There are two basic recipes for brownies.  One using melted chocolate and one using chocolate cocoa powder.  I have determined that using cocoa powder gives me the consistency and taste that I am looking for. 

They are moist and delicious and require four napkins to eat.  Awesome!!

Ultimate Chocolate Brownies – (Adapted from Alton Brown’s Cocoa Brownies)

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar, sifted
• 1 cup brown sugar, sifted
• 8 ounces melted butter
• 1 1/4 cups cocoa, sifted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup flour, sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 bag of caramels
• 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup milk

The first step is to start the caramels melting on the stove top. This takes about 15 minutes.  Place the unwrapped caramels in a sauce pan with 1/2 cup of milk.  Slowly melt the caramels on low heat, stirring frequently.  At this time I would also melt the chocolate chips either over a double boiler, or in the microwave at 20 second intervals.

Next preheat the oven to 300 degrees and grease a 8×8 pan.  I use a non-stick spray and then cover the bottom of the pan with parchment.  The allows for easy removal later.

Now sift your flour, cocoa powder and both sugars.  The sugar is easily sifted using a food processor.  Sifting brown sugar any other way is extremely hard due to its moisture content.

In your mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the four eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow.

Once the eggs are fluffy, remove the whisk attachment and replace it with your beater attachment.  Then add both the brown and granulated sugar.  Once the sugar is mixed in, add the remaining ingredients.  The melted butter, cocoa powder, flour, vanilla extract and salt.  Stir until incorporated.  Don’t over mix. 

Now place half of the dough in the greased pan. 

Now layer with the melted chocolate.

Add the walnuts and drizzle with the melted caramel (slightly cooled).

Now cover the caramel with the remaining brownie batter.  Don’t worry if you can’t spread the batter evenly.  Having a few pockets of caramel makes the brownies look even more delicious.  Plus, when the batter heats up, it will spread and evenly coat the top.

Bake on the center rack of a 300 degree preheated oven for 45-50 minutes.  Check with a toothpick for doneness.  Remember you layered in melted chocolate so your readings might be a tad bit off.  I usually bake until the top crust forms and cracks when tapped.  The tap test is the best way since the middle of the brownies is molten from the chocolate and caramel.

When done, remove from the oven and let cool in the pan on a rack for at least 30 minutes before cutting.

Serve with a ice cold glass of milk. 

These brownies are amazing. They are chewy and have a surprise in the middle.  Delicious.