Confiture de Lait Brownies

Alas, I don’t eat chocolate au naturel anymore, so no eggs and chocolate bunnies for me this Easter! However when it comes to baked chocolate goods, all bets are off!

So, hello brownies! Oh heavenly, sweet snack of the gods. An idle baker’s dream because they can be easily whipped up with a lazy hand and not a care in the world. And let’s not forget the essential chewy and fudgy texture of brownies that never fails to please. And before the detractors speak, yes brownies have to be fudgy and chewy – that’s their ‘thing’ and we should adore them for what they are. Those in the cakey brownie camp (a travesty I tell ya!) should…well…just bake a cake!

Nevertheless, those little bars of chocolate gooeyness are perfection but even perfection can be improved upon. So I did a little matchmaking. Chocolate brownie? Meet Miss Confiture de Lait. I think you two will really hit it off. And I did promise you all a confiture dessert recipe or two!

Now this idea only came about because I had excess of confiture de lait and brownies are a permanent baking fixture in my house. But I’m sure this brownie and milk caramel combo is nothing new. Oh the joy of fudgey chocolate brownies with bits of chewy milk caramel? Slap me silly but why didn’t I discover this earlier?!

Ingredients

115gm butter, chopped into pieces
200gm good quality dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa), chopped
¼ C of cocoa powder (unsweetened and preferably Dutch-processed)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
200gm brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
170gm plain flour
1 C (thereabouts) of confiture de lait (recipe here)

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C and line a 20cm square tin or slice pan with aluminium foil so it comes over the sides (I realise my tin pictured here is missing the foil but that’s due to lazy grocery shopping – but I wholeheartedly recommend this step to make life easier later). Grease the foil with non-stick spray or butter.

In a pan over low heat, melt the butter, then add the chocolate and stir over the low heat until it’s all melted and combined.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Stir in the sugar and vanilla and gently fold in the flour. Do not over mix.

Pour half the batter in to the baking pan, then lace the top of it with half the confiture. Grab a skewer and swirl gorgeous, psychedelic patterns, ever so slightly.

Pour the other half of the brownie batter and do the same with the rest of the confiture. Make do with the caramel psychedelic swirlage once again. Don’t over swirl otherwise the caramel will just mix into the chocolate (as mine kind of did).

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes or until the centres are just cooked. I recommend checking it at 35 minutes but in my oven it takes 45 minutes. Remove and cool before lifting the foiled brownie slab out of the tin.