Time Factor: 3ish hour
Wow Factor (1-10): 8.5
Music to Bake By: Gwen Stefani "The Sweet Escape"
Amanda Bakes:
This is my first adventure baking for this blog. Let me point out that I'm basically an untrained - but enthusiastic! - baker, I work full time and I'm the mom of a delightfully energetic preschooler. i.e., things don't come out perfectly. Ever. For example, I really wanted to spend time picking out the precise, exact, most perfect recipe to kick off this blog but the truth is we were invited to dinner at a friends (with kids) and I didn't have time for the butter to soften. That meant brownies. I have been reading David Lebowitz's fabulous blog and he has an intriguing recipe for Dulce de Leche Brownies. I had to try it.
This was further complicated by the fact that this was not a small batch job (the whole point of the Baking for Three blog) because we were bringing it to friends. Nor did I have sweetened condensed milk. (Well, I did, but it had expired TWO YEARS AGO, necessitating a quick pre-nap trip to Safeway.) These brownies took me insanely longer than the average person because my daughter decided not to nap and once we broke her free from her cage (I mean bed), she really wanted to help. Which means everything took twice as long - but let's face it, it was twice as cute too.
Okay, so Dulce de Leche Brownies - here goes:
- First you have to make the dulce de leche. Sounds complicated. It's not. Preheat the oven to
425° F. Get a can of sweetened condensed milk and pour it into a glass baking dish or pie plate. Add a pinch of sea salt and stir. Cover with tin foil. Get a larger glass baking dish and place the small one inside the larger one. Add warm water into the larger one (so the small one is essentially taking a nice warm bath. Bake for one hour to one hour fifteen minutes. When it's done it should be nice and carmely brown. Let cool, then whisk. Mine had some uncarmelized parts but when I whisked it all together it was fine.
Whisk found in my daughter's play kitchen.
- While that was cooling I started the brownies. First preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then line a 8-inch square pan with tin foil and give it a light spritz with non stick spray. The tin foil is David's trick and he's right - it makes getting the brownies out and clean up a lot easier.
So then you take 8 tablespoons (one stick) of salted or unsalted butter, cut it into pieces, and put it into a double boiler to melt. Don't put too much water in the double boiler or it starts steaming up around the sides of the bowl and condensation could get into your chocolate. Water and chocolate, I've been told by a pastry chef friend, don't mix. Water basically ruins the chocolate. Use just enough water and keep the heat low to be safe.
Small pieces melt faster.
Now there are lots of strong opinions about chocolate, which brand to use and which type (bittersweet, semi, milk, white, etc.) I am chocolate agnostic (so far) and try everything. I recently learned that baking chips are not good for recipes that require melting because they're made to stay whole in cookies. However, there's a big difference between the ideal ingredient to use in a recipe and what you have in your cabinet. That said, I used 6 ounces Semisweet Chocolate Chips (I used Guittard Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
Action shot!
). DL says you can use bitter or semisweet -- I used what I had. They melted easily. You are supposed to stir constantly over very low heat until the chocolate is melted but I was interrupted by the calls of my non-napping daughter and the mostly unattended melt still turned out fine.
- Wash your whisk! Remove chocolate/butter
I was ordered to wear Z's Halloween Silly Bandz.
from heat and whisk in 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (I used Scharffen Berger Natural Cocoa Powderwhich I just realized is not dutch-processed but, oh well) until smooth. Add in 3 large eggs, one at a time.
- At this point Z had dragged her mini chair into the kitchen and was not going to be denied involvement. I let her stir in the 1 cup of sugar while I added 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and then (following another DL trick) I tossed in about a half teaspoon of Star Kay White Pure Chocolate Extract
just for kicks. DL says it makes things taste extra chocolatey but honestly the jury's still out for me.
- You're in the home stretch! Add 1 cup of flour and if you
want, 1 cup toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped. I couldn't deal with the nuts - plus I figured I was already pushing my luck with preschoolers and these brownies. During this part of the process, feel free to chant 'bate, bate, bate!' which is what Dora does when she's mixing things.
Z 'helping'!
- Scrape half of the batter into the pan with the tin foil. Now take one-third of the Dulce de Leche and pour that in over the brownie batter. Drag a butter knife through to swirl it slightly. I do not recommend letting your three-year old do the swirling, but hey, you may be more adventurous than I. Pour the in remaining brownie batter and then drop spoonfuls of the rest of the Dulce de Leche over the top of the brownie batter and swirl, swirl, swirl.
- Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. DL says the brownies are done when the center feels "just-slightly firm". I put a little skewer in mine to test and it looked too wet so I let it cook an extra ten. In hindsight I realized what I was looking at was the Dulce de Leche, which stays very soft and wet. So don't make my mistake and over-bake! Despite that, Z said she liked 'the inside and the outside' so I guess there's no such thing as bad Dulce de Leche brownies. Once they're done, remove brownies from the oven and cool completely.
After the oven. 
Before the oven. - My brownies tasted pretty good (well, the three 3-year olds liked them) but the chocolate looked MUCH lighter than DL's. I think it's because the cocoa I used wasn't Dutch processed. Bake and learn! In a strange mind meld our hostess bought Dulce de Leche ice cream for dessert. You'd think that might be too much Dulce de Leche, but, apparently that's not something you need to worry about.
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