Brownies of the World … Spice Up Your Life!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I made the trip home to Boston that, while stressful, was a very successful trip!

I got to spend lots of time with my family, my beautiful nieces, friends, and luckily I was able to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I tried my hand at making a Thanksgiving turkey and made my very first batch of cranberry sauce. My assistant (and eldest niece) Rebecca was a huge help and I think the love that she put into the dishes definitely played a factor in how well they turned out.

Since I wasn’t planning on making anything I had very few recipes to choose from. Luckily, I have been holding onto a can of sweetened condensed milk and I found the perfect recipe to use it in.

Spicy Caramel Brownies

Ingredients:

• 1 12 oz. can fat free sweetened condensed milk
• 1 oz. semi sweet chocolate (either chopped or chocolate chips will do)
• 1/2 C. splenda
• 6 tbsp. butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 C. whole whet flour
• 1/3 unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground red pepper
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• cooking spray

Steps:

• In a double boiler, heat the condensed milk over boiling water. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about an hour to 90 minutes OR until the mixture is thick and caramel-colored. Stir occasionally and cool slightly.

• Preheat the oven to 350.

• Place the chocolate in a microwave safe dish and microwabve on HIGH for 30 seconds or until it is almost melted. Make sure to keep an eye on this as chocolate burns easily.

• Combine melted chocolate, splenda and butter in a medium bowl. Beat with an electric hand mixture until well blended.

• In a separate bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking power, salt and red pepper.

• Add flour mixture to splenda mixture and but just until blended. Stir half of sweetened condensed milk into the batter.

• Spoon the batter into a square baking dish coated with cooking spray. Dollop the remaining sweetened condensed milk by the spoonful over the chocolate mixture in the pan and swirl together with a toothpick.

• Bake for 19 minutes or until a wooden toothpick can be inserted into the center and comes out clean.

Tips:

I’ll admit – this is NOT the quickest recipe I have ever posted but it is still fairly simple.

I think the recipe calls for a littttttle too much red pepper so I would scale that back in the recipe. Other than that, these were interesting, but in a good way. My big tip for these is that you really be patient with the condensed milk and let it thicken or else the flavor and texture of the brownies will be off. Also, I would cut back the baking time by a minute or two just because I felt my brownies turned out a little dry and I like them more on the moist (and slightly under cooked) side.

Now, a double boiler is a way to heat something without burning it. it is often used with delicate sauces or with something that needs to be stirred constantly. To make your own double boiler you can use a metal bowl and a saucepan OR two saucepans that are different sizes. The bowl should partially (not completely) fit into the saucepan. Fill the saucepan with enough water so that when the bowl rests in the saucepan the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.