Carmel Brownies

Carmel Brownies

Set yer oven to 350 degrees. Fahrenheit. (Note to self. Learn to spell "fahrenheit.")

Ingredients list:

1st part
-1 box of chocolate cake mix. Get the Chocolate Fudge kind.
-1/2 cup of softened butter. Real cooks do NOT use margarine. Puh-leeze.
-1/2 cup evaporated milk. Pay attention and do NOT get the sweetened condensed milk.

2nd part
-10 oz of carmels, melted. Do me a favor and remember to take the little plastic wrappers off BEFORE you melt 'em. Don't call me with a kitchen full of smoke 'cause I'll just laugh at you! :D
-1/3 cup of evaporated milk. Use some more out of that can you just opened a moment ago for the 1st part. Duh.
-1 Cup of Chocolate chips. Or Chocolate Morsels. Or whatever you call 'em. Just get the milk chocolate, not the dark chocolate. Not the big chocolate chunks, either. They're too big. Size matters.

Cut the butter into the cake mix. Blend it until it's a course mixture. When you're done, it will look a bit like brown sand.

Add 1/2 cup of evaporated milk. Mix it pretty well but don't whip it or blend it or anything. Be nice to it. When you're done, it will be more of a sticky, pasty dough, not a batter. Kind of difficult to work with, really. If you don't know the difference between dough and batter, please consider leaving the kitchen and don't ever try to cook again. :D On the other hand, if you got this far, you'll know the difference.

Put half, JUST half of the dough into a 9x13 backing dish, ergo a cake pan. If you do this at a future time, you might want to use a smaller pan if you want thicker brownies but you may have to adjust how you do the carmel and chocolate chips (see below).

Bake for 15 minutes @ 350 degrees F. (Nice. Abbreviations make me lazy!)

While that's baking, melt up the caramels and 1/3 cupe of evaporated milk in a saucepan over a low heat. I should point out that if you use GOOD carmels, you're much better off. Better ingredients make better stuff, folks. I recommend the Brach's caramels. They are indeed the creamiest and melt the best. Darker caramels are usually better. Remember to use a pan.

I should mention, if you've never done this before, that you can really fill your kitchen up with smoke and make a huge mess if you do this at a high heat. Only use a medium to low heat, closer to the low side. Note my comment above about NOT calling me if you fill up your house with smoke! :D

When you're done melting the caramels, it will be a creamy, beautiful sauce. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT take a taste of it. It's so good that if you do, you'll just sit there eating the whole thing and not only will you not be able to finish the recipe but you'll be sick. Remember what I said I'd do if you called? This stuff is addictive, moreso than crack cocaine. At least, that's what all the crackheads told me one day many years ago when I made this at the shelter.

After you take the brownies out of the oven, let 'em sit on a hot pad for a couple of minutes. The surface will settle and fall a bit but that's a good thing.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips liberally over the mix. They'll start to get a bit melty as they sit there, getting mosty toasty! No need to spread them around, really.

Pour the caramel sauce over the chocolate chips. Hopefully, it's still warm in the pan. You don't have to fill the cake pan all the way to the sides but it won't really hurt it if you do.

Use a teaspoon to drop the remaining brownie dough over the top of the caramel sauce. The spoonfuls don't have to touch at this point. They'll spread out in the oven and fill in the gaps. Trust me on this one. Once you've dropped a spoonful, it's done. Don't pick it back up, don't try to fix it, don't ever touch it again before it goes back into the oven again. It's okay to not look perfect at this point. Nobody is ever going to see it this way but you. Now is not the time to be perfect about it. Got it? I thought so! :D

Still, make sure you are moderately even with it. You don't want to run out halfway across the pan.

Put it back in the oven and bake for another 20 minutes. High elevations, add a minute or two if necessary.

Remember what I said above about not tasting the caramel before you use it? If you have a spoonful or so left over, now is the time. Dig in! You'll be in hog heaven, I promise! In fact, if you use your teaspoon to scrape the brownie bowl and then dip into some caramel sauce, you'll wonder why you don't do this recipe every day! Don't do it every day 'cause if you do, you'll have diabetes in a month. Or even faster Still, once in a while, it's good to indulge a bit, of course. Got Milk?

When you take the brownies out of the oven, let them sit for an hour at least on the aforementioned hot pad. Then cut them up into bite sizes. At this point, they are food of the gods but if you eat more than about two, you'll have a stomach ache. Seriously, though, these are super rich. Any more than bite size is usually more than people can handle. They'll want moraelf. That's what I do. :D

Enjoy!

--Wag--

P.S. Remember to shut your oven off. :D