Knock You Naked Brownies

You may or may not know about my dessert obsession. Much like the Lindt chocolatiers, I dream in chocolate. I literally woke up one morning and decided I needed to make brownies with caramel in the middle. This was shortly after a disappointing experience with stuffed french toast that wasn't actually stuffed - I wanted something to be stuffed properly. So I stuffed some brownies. With caramel. Totally normal.

Side note: Do you say car-mel or care-a-mel? I am a car-mel person, but I am secretly envious of those who say care-a-mel. I feel like the care-a-mels are SO fancy and elegant. I'm not that fancy. I'm just a regular girl who made gobs of brownies for a Super Bowl party.

I saved some of the brownies before taking them to the party. I'm currently staring at the last one. I want to eat it but I don't want them all to be gone. Such are the problems of fat-minded people. 

I found this recipe from the Pioneer Woman. I love her. I don't think she's made a single thing that doesn't look good to me. She made these brownies. I made these brownies. I would marry anyone who made me these brownies.

Don't judge me, but the ingredients are a little strange. You'll need a german chocolate cake mix, evaporated milk, chocolate chips, melted butter, chopped pecans, and caramels.

Start with the cake mix. If you're not a cake mix person, do not jump to decisions too soon. I promise it tastes nothing like a boxed cake.

Mix 1 cup chopped pecans, 1/3 c. evaporated milk, and 1/2 c. melted butter with the cake mix. Use a spoon and your hulk muscles, because this batter is about to get THICK.

Stir. Stir. Stir. It's a lot more difficult than it looks.

Smush it all down. You'll need to create two pieces - one for the top, one for the bottom of the brownies.

Just cut the batter in half and take out one piece. This is half the batter. I know, it's a revelation. I teach fractions to 4th graders.

However, this picture may look confusing. I made a double recipe. Hence, I needed 4 pieces. Don't think about them.

Smush one piece on the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Use your hands and press until it covers the entire pan.

Bake for about 8 minutes to set a solid foundation for the caramel.

While you're mixing the batter, have a double boiler going to melt the caramels. You'll need about 60 caramels and 1/2 c. of the evaporated milk.

This took me a while to do. This is about half-way there. Don't give up. Keep stirring. Keep melting. Keep eating the spare caramels.

Admire the smooth, creamy caramel sauce. Enjoy the satisfaction that you were able to finally melt those suckers down.

While the caramels are melting, press the remaining portion of the dough into a piece the size of your pan. Let this sit for just a minute or two.

Pour the caramel sauce over the baked brownie layer. Spread it out so that every portion is covered.

Sprinkle with 1 c. chocolate chips.

Here's what proved to be the most difficult part of baking these - transferring that top layer of brownies on top of the caramel sauce. Mine kept falling apart. I tried to piece it together on top of the caramel, but it didn't work so well. I just rested on the fact that no one will complain that they don't look perfect. Plus, I covered them with powdered sugar so perfection wasn't necessary.

This batch worked a bit better, but still not perfect.

Now, here's the worst part. Bake them for 20-25 min more. But, when they're done, you may not eat them right away. You have to let them cool in order for the caramel to set. I had mine rest on the counter for 20 minutes, then placed them in the freezer for an hour and it worked perfectly.

Dust with powdered sugar. I like to think of it as crack powder. Anything with powdered sugar is highly addictive. People will sell organs for it. Add powdered sugar.

Then use your hulk muscles and cut the brownies.

Perfection. Chocolatey, caramely, nutty, chewy, perfection.

Texas Sheet Cake

Here it is. The dessert of my dreams. I thought I knew what chocolate cake was, but I was wrong. So, so wrong.

This is honestly the best cake I've ever eaten. In my life. Ever. I would be lying if I didn't say that I had a piece on a plate in the kitchen that I get up every few minutes to take a hidden bite out of... It is that good.

The cake is chocolate-y. Soft. Crunchy. Fudge-y. Buttery. Thin. Perfect. Huge I mean, just look. How can this cake be bad?

Please, no comments from the weight watchers gallery. This cake is made for bad, rebellious people who eat what they want and you can't do anything about it. Don't judge me. It was my birthday and I'm in love.

The thing I really liked about this cake was that that it was easy. And I had most of the ingredients. And it was good. Did I say thing? I meant there's nothing about this cake I don't like, which is quite annoying.

The starting lineup. For the cake: 2 c. flour, 2 c. sugar, 1/4 tsp. salt, 4 heaping tbsp. cocoa powder, 2 sticks regular butter (no unsalted), 1 c. boiling water, 1/2 c. buttermilk (which can be created from adding vinegar to regular milk... who knew?), 2 eggs, 1 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. vanilla.

WHEW. I know its a lot, but think - you actually know what those things are! No crazy, fancy ingredients that require specialty stores or a french accent to pronounce. Butter-milk. Buttermilk. You're good.

Melt the butter.

Add 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder. Allow it to boil for about a minute and turn off the heat. Set it aside.

Mix together the flour, sugar, and salt.

Powder. Good.

Dump the chocolate mix into the flour mixture to help cool the chocolate off a bit. You'll be adding milk and dairy soon and no one wants cooked eggs in their cake!

Add two eggs to your buttermilk.

Add the vanilla and baking powder.

Mix it all up.

Add this to the chocolate/flour mixture and stir it all together.

It should look something like this when you're done.

Dump the mixture in an ungreased jelly roll pan (which I learned is a cookie sheet with edges). Spread it out so it's even.

Place it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. Be sure to take a before/ after smell test right now.

While this is cooking, take a moment or two to do some clean up and wash the saucepan you used to melt the butter earlier.

You need to because while you wait you're going to make the frosting!

I don't have a separate frosting line-up picture. I'm sorry. I'm new to this. You need 1 3/4 sticks regular butter, 4 heaping tbsp. cocoa powder, 6 tbsp. milk, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 lb. powdered sugar, and 1/2 c. pecans (Optional, but only if you have nut allergies. If not, you really must put them in.)

Melt the butter y'all. Nothing bad has come from butter. Do not tell me otherwise.

Take your pecans and chop them up. Chop 'em up reall good and tiny. (Something about this cake makes me want to speak in a southern accent. Maybe it's all the butter and the Paula stuff in the news...)

Use a big knife. I promise it helps. Plus, you feel safer from robbers and murderers.

 See this. Those are tiny chopped pecans. Those are well chopped. That chopping takes skill. Just kidding, it just takes patience which I don't often have much left of when I get around to cooking!

When the butter's all melted, add your cocoa powder. Let it bubble for a minute before turning the heat off.

Add your milk and vanilla. 

Add the powdered sugar and realize you probably should've used a bigger saucepan. Oh well!

Stir slowly (since your pan is just a wee bit small until the sugar dissolves!). Keep stirring and stirring until it's smoooooth.

Throw your pecans right on in the vat of chocolate goodness.

Stir. Sigh. Stir. Sigh. Use a spoon to taste test for quality control. Sigh.

After the cake is out of the oven and the frosting is done, dump the warm frosting on the warm cake. The frosting pretty much spreads itself.

It needs a little help. But the pecans make it look rustic, so it doesn't matter too much if it isn't perfect!

Sit, stare, smell, and wait a few minutes until the frosting sets. (If you don't wait, the fudgey frosting will pool up in the missing piece's spot)

Do a favor for me? Eat a piece while it's warm. Know you're a bad, bad, rebellious human being and throw diets to the wind, for one piece.

Or a few pieces... Gahl, look at that texture.

I highly recommend a nice cold glass of milk with this cake. The cake is so rich that the milk does an excellent job making it even better, which you didn't know was possible until right now.

The question I haven't answered, which I know is on everyone's mind, is "Why is it called Texas Sheet Cake?" Well, let me tell you blogosphere, it's a cake as big and over-the-top as Texas and can have no other name. Except maybe Heaven, but God still hasn't responded to the copyright usage yet.