Categories: dessert
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons butter, plus more to grease the pan
- 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (the recipe calls for Dutch process, but I used natural because that’s what I had)
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped, optional (I opted not to use nuts)
- 1 cup dulce de leche
Directions
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
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Generously grease an 8-inch square pan.
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Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the chocolate and stir constantly over very low heat until melted.
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Remove from the heat and add the cocoa. Whisk until smooth.
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Add the eggs one at a time (it will look a little curdly at first but keep mixing and by the 3rd egg it will look smooth).
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Stir in the sugar, vanilla, and flour. Mix in nuts if using.
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Scrape half of the batter into the pan and spread it out. Drop about one-third of the dulce de leche in prune-sized dollops, evenly spaced, over the brownie batter. (I apparently think prunes are really big… you don’t want to make your dollops too big or it will be hard to swirl and you’ll just have big globs. I’d say no more than maybe tablespoon size dollops would work better than my walnut to golf-ball sized dollops).
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Drag a knife through the dulce de leche to swirl it slightly.
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Spread the remaining brownie batter over the top, then drop the rest of the dulce de leche over the batter. Run a knife through to swirl it. David’s note says that if you overdo the swirling, the whole thing will bake into a bubbly mess so just drag a knife through once or twice and leave it at that. (I will admit I swirled a bit more than once or twice but that was because the dollops I used were too big. It did bubble up a little as it baked but it didn’t turn into a mess so you probably just need to use some restraint and be gentle).
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Bake for 45 minutes, or until the center feels just slightly firm.
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Remove from the oven and cool completely before cutting.