lazy caramel brownies

I hate to go all Cake Doctor on you, but before I met Pierre Herme's recipes and learned what True Cooking was, I had this favorite brownie recipe. I'm sure you've seen some form of it online. You take a cake mix and throw in caramel and chocolate and marshmallows, and you get a chocolate confection that will put you in a diabetic coma. Being a sugar fiend and lazy, I modified it a bit. I increased the fillings, because if a little caramel is good, a lot is better, right? And I replaced the caramels + evaporated milk with plain old caramel sauce from a jar, because no one wants to spend half an hour unwrapping caramels.

This recipe comes with a warning: This is a *ton* of sugar. Too much for many people's taste. And you *cannot* serve it warm. You just can't. The brownies need to cool completely to room temperature to be good. If you serve them warm, not only are they ridiculously messy, but they taste much sweeter. To the point of being basically inedible. I made these for a sugar-eating contest with a friend this weekend and served them warm, and neither of us could get more than one of them down. When they're cold, I've single-handedly eaten a pan of them by myself in two days. They're that good.


caramel brownies
1 box chocolate cake mix, (the darker the better)
.66 C butter, melted
.33 C evaporated milk
1 C pecans, finely chopped or food processed until size of large crumbs
1 jar caramel ice cream topping
.5 bag mini marshmallows
.5 bag milk chocolate chips
.25 bag dark chocolate chips
handful of white chocolate chips (optional)

Mix the evaporated milk and melted butter into the cake mix until thoroughly combined. Add the nuts. Press 1/2 of dough into sprayed 9 x 13" pan. Bake about 6 minutes at 350. Sprinkle chocolate and marshmallows across crust. Pour caramel over top. Roll out remaining dough and press over the top. Bake about 15 minutes.