Burlesque Brownies

A few of weeks ago I went for steak at my one of my favourite spots for a red meat fix in Hong Kong, Argentinian steakhouse, Tango. Always guaranteed a delicious, perfectly cooked steak, excellent service and to top it all off a dessert laced with my naughtiest obsession - dulce de leche.  

In case you've somehow managed to get through life without falling prey to the wiles of dulce de leche, let me introduce you... golden, caramelly, super sweet and basically an extra dress size in a jar, dulche de leche is made by slowly heating condensed milk. A very popular dessert in South America, my favourite way to eat it is with vanilla ice-cream - total indulgence on a spoon.

Usually a visit to Tango ends with me pretending that I want to 'share' a dulce de leche and ice-cream and promptly wolfing the lot before anyone else gets a look in. This time however I went a bit further and somehow ended up leaving with a kilo of dulce de leche... I blame the Malbec...

So I woke up the next morning with just under two weeks until I had to get into a bikini for a spot of sunning on the Amalfi Coast and with a kilo of dulce de leche to get through - I had to do something to get the stuff out of the house before I ate it all. Googling wildly, I found a solution which sounded devilishly delicious - dulce de leche brownies. Or as I like to call them, Burlesque Brownies...

So a while ago I blogged about making Slutty Brownies, a recipe stolen from the Londoner (great blog if you haven't ever checked it out) for brownies made from brownie mix, cookie mix and oreos. In case you were wondering, they get their name from the fact that they're very easy and incredibly naughty....

With those in mind, I bring you the Burlesque Brownie - not nearly so easy but slinky, sexy and just as naughty (if not naughtier) - more than worth the effort; if you like, the thinking man's brownie...

So without further a do, dulce de leche at the ready my only advice is to bake these with somewhere that they need to be taken to just after they're ready otherwise there's a very real danger that you'll eat the whole batch before passing out in a sugar coma... you have been warned... 

Burlesque Brownies

(Adapted from a David Lebovitz Recipe)

You'll need:

1/2 cup (115g) salted or unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup (25g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 large eggs
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 vanilla pod
1 cup (140g) flour
1 cup of dulce de leche 

The infamous dulce de leche AKA crack...

Now for how to transform all that chocolate and caramel into those Burleque Brownies...

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (175 C).

Line a baking tin with greased tin foil/ baking paper so that it covers the bottom and reaches up the sides.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the chocolate and stir constantly over a very low heat until the chocolate has melted. remove the mixture from the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth and glossy.

Add in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sugar. Now split the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds using the blunt edge of a knife. Add the vanilla seeds to the chocolate mixture together with the flour. Mix well and don't panic if it looks a little lumpy.

Pour half the batter into the baking tin and then it's time for the dulce de leche....

Drop about one third of the dulce de leche on top of the brownie batter. Don't worry about being too precise but try to get it as evenly spaced as you can - you want to make sure that the dulce de leche goodness is spread across as many bites as possible!

Drag a knife through the blobs of dulce de leche to swirl it slightly. Sit back and admire how pretty it looks while rewarding yourself with a spoonful of dulce de leche...

Spread the rest of the brownie batter over the top of your pretty swirls and then repeat the process all over again with the remaining dulce de leche (ie more dolloping and swirling...).

Pop in the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Your Burlesque Babies are ready when the centre feels just slightly firm. Don't overdo it, you want them to be a bit gooey in the middle. Take your tin of brownies out of the oven and try to resist sneaking a taste while they cool.

Now slice into squares and devour.... Although actually these bad boys get better with age (within reason, you should make sure they're gobbled within three days of baking... any excuse!).

And finally, time for the food porn....

ENJOY!