Dulce de Leche Brownies (and more!)

This week's TWD recipe was an espresso-cheesecake brownie, which sounds fabulous...if you like espresso. Or cheesecake. Unfortunately, neither of those elements are too popular around my house. BROWNIES, on the other hand, will earn you fawning compliments, a kiss, and a folded twenty slipped into your palm, easy. So instead of the given recipe, I decided to make a recipe I've been dying to try: David Lebovitz's Dulce de Leche Brownies.

My husband loves dulce de leche. Looooves it. Busts out a spoon and hovers protectively over the dulce de leche and snaps like a chihuahua at anyone trying to get near it-style love. So knowing this, you'd think I would make it a point to work dulce de leche into our dessert rotation on a regular basis, but no. It just doesn't usually occur to me to make a batch and then use it for baking. However, now that we've had these brownies, we may start seeing a lot more of it around these parts.

I made the dulce de leche the old-fashioned way: boiling a can on the stovetop for about 5 hours. Some folks have a problem with this, to which I say, feh! If you let a little thing like exploding cans and grievous bodily harm worry you, you have no place in my kitchen. NO FEAR, SUCKAS. Buuuut I suppose if you're really going to wuss out, you can make it using other methods, like in a pressure cooker, crock-pot, or out of the can and baked in a water bath in the oven. (Weenies.) At any rate, once you have the gorgeously thick dulce de leche, you'll want to eat a bunch of it on its own, until you start to vibrate from all of the sugar in your system. At that point, you're ready to use the rest to make these brownies!

The brownies turn out rich and somewhat fudgy, although the 3 eggs in the recipe prevent them from being too dense or gluey. The dulce de leche is swirled throughout the batter but I tried to leave some in pockets so the flavor wouldn't be lost, and it worked well--most bites had at least a little dulce de leche, and some had big gobs of the caramelized goodness. DELICIOUS. These were pretty intense, so they can be cut into fairly small squares, and I found a pan stretched pretty far.

I also made these wonderful candies with some of the dulce de leche. They're super-simple but incredibly addicting! I took two jumbo pecan halves and sandwiched them with a small spoonful of dulce de leche. Then the whole package was dipped in dark chocolate. It was such a great combo--crunchy toasted nuts, rich chocolate, and creamy, caramelized dulce de leche. They're a perfect one or two-bite candy, almost too easy to munch, if you know what I mean. You don't really need a recipe but if you'd like one it can be found here: Dulce de Leche Pecan Bites.



The recipe for the brownies can be found after the cut...


Dulce de Leche Brownies from the ever-fabulous David Lebovitz
Yield: 12 brownies

8 tablespoons (115g) salted or unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 ounces (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup (25g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 large eggs
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (140g) flour
optional: 1 cup (100 g) toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup Dulce de Leche (or Cajeta)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 C).

Line a 8-inch (20 cm) square pan with a long sheet of aluminum foil that covers the bottom and reaches up the sides. If it doesn't reach all the way up and over all four sides, cross another sheet of foil over it, making a large cross with edges that overhang the sides. Grease the bottom and sides of the foil with a bit of butter or non-stick spray.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the chocolate pieces and stir constantly over very low heat until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Add in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sugar, vanilla, then the flour. Mix in the nuts, if using.

Scrape half of the batter into the prepared pan. Here comes the fun part.
Drop one-third of the Dulce de Leche, evenly spaced, over the brownie batter, then drag a knife through to swirl it slightly. Spread the remaining brownie batter over, then drop spoonfuls of the remaining Dulce de Leche in dollops over the top of the brownie batter. Use a knife to swirl the Dulce de Leche slightly.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. The brownies are done when the center feels just-slightly firm. Remove from the oven and cool completely.