Brownie Stack

 The double chocolate brownies has been one of the favorite items over the counter. Decided to make this for a birthday as a non fondant covered cake but with a taste of designer cake. So made a "magical floating jug" that seems like a source of endless chocolate supply!

 



Dulce De Leche Brownies

I had painstakingly made some dulce de leche (pronounced as dool-say-dee-leh-chey I think... ?) a few months back from "scratch", that was cooking fresh milk and sugar and reducing it to the consistency of caramel. If you think this sounds cool, DO NOT DO IT! Unless you have good supply of fresh milk, really fresh milk, not those store bought ones, because the taste of this "specially made" dulce de leche of mine tasted exactly like as though I'd used condensed milk. Humphhh... so, use condensed milk, it is less time consuming and less messy.



I thought I would make banoffee pies with the dulce de leche when I made them but have been really lazy! So when I saw a link through PY's FB page on dulce de leche cheesecake, I wanted to make some during my free Sunday this week, but when browsing through saw an even better link that suited my lazy mood nicely.


Brownies with ribbons, layers and dollops of dulce de leche. Brownies just have to be one of the most hassle free baking ever. This recipe uses melted chocolate and also cocoa powder. I've changed the recipe slightly and I think the next time I can make coffee infused dulce de leche for some "coffee caramel brownies". :)

The marble effect of the dulce de leche

PY said my brownies looked like it has been glazed. It's just the caramel at the top actually.

Too lazy to set up special photo shooting background, so here are a few pictures I took while having 2 pieces of the brownies myself (another one with coffee now) and quickly stored away the rest as they have all been allocated already for my volunteer tasters ^^

I have a sweet tooth and I love caramel, so I'd say MORE dulce de leche :)). But if you have a low sweet tolerance level, better stick to the recipe and perhaps put in some nuts as suggested, I believe that gives more texture and is able to make the brownies taste less sweet overall.

Kirsty's Brownies

Kirsty and Paul were in Malaysia for their vacation. Kirsty was sis' colleague and close friend when sis was back in London. Kirsty first baked this delicious brownies for sis' birthday and it had since became sis' favorite. Since pregnant, sis doesn't fancy any desserts except for chocolate stuff so far. So, sis has specially requested for Kirsty to bring a full container of brownies all the way from Switzerland, where Kirsty now lives, together with the chocolates she used to bake these wonderful brownies. Here are the "imported" chocolate which I've used for this round of baking.



I've baked these before but they were not as good. The original recipe was in Dutch and Kirsty had got it translated for me, with some modification of her own of course which makes this brownie so perfect. I am still experimenting to see if there will be any huge difference when I use different chocolate, butter, flour, or...? Just baked some yesterday and they were close. Sis said it has to be the flour. Besides that, unsalted butter is strongly recommended for brownies. It gives the fresher, melt in your mouth effect, minus the sourish taste.

The fantastic part of this brownies is the chunky milk chocolate bits. Sis has them brownies chilled at the moment so that they can be kept longer. I quite like eating these straight from the fridge actually. When you eat them chilled, they are crunchy because the milk chocolate bits are harder. At room temperature, you have these melt-in-your-mouth effect from the same chocolate bits.

I like keeping brownies in airtight cookie jar. The brownies looks delicious when they are stacked up high. Cookie jars are also perfect to keep brownies fresh.

I had a piece for afternoon tea with my dosage of coffee. Sis had three after dinner, though she claimed that I ate half of her portion.

Gave some to my official taster, the brownies taste okay, don't they?