delicious enough brownies

For Christmas I received this great cookbook: Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. It is chock full of incredible desserts, each of which seems to require 4 sticks of butter!

The first recipe I tried was Heart of Darkness Brownies. These decadent suckers have chopped-up Snickers bars and chocolate chips in them, and they are supposed to have a caramel drizzle on top. With the toasted marshmallow topping, it’s basically a 3-step process to make these. There are 3 sticks of butter in these, but the recipe made a lot. Unfortunately, I realized after they were in the oven that I had forgotte to include the brown sugar. Doh! So, I didn’t make the caramel drizzle because I was afraid they were going to be ruined. They still tasted quite delicious, though, and the recipe is definitely a keeper! I can’t wait to try other recipes from this cookbook.
Read on for the recipe …

Heart of Darkness Brownies from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey
Makes 24 brownies
Ingredients:
3 sticks unsalted butter
6 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coarsely chopped raw almonds or pecans (I left these out because I am not a fan of nuts in my cookies or brownies)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
5 full-size Snickers, cut into small pieces
3 cups mini marshmallows
For the caramel drizzle:
6 ounces unwrapped caramel squares
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray muffin tins with nonstick spray (you need 24 cups total. I only had, uh, 18 or so, so I used the foil cupcake liners and lined them on a baking sheet).
Melt the butter and the unsweetened chocolate together over medium-low heat (or I reckon you could do this in a microwave). Stir until smooth. Pour the chocolate mixture into a large bowl and add the sugars (white and brown), eggs, and vanilla. Sift the flour and salt intot he mix and stir until just combined. Stir in the nuts (if you’re going to do that), chocolate chips, and Snickers chunks.
Fill each muffin cup about halfway with the batter. Bake about 20 minutes, or until the surface has a glossy, crackled surface. Remove from the oven then add 1/4 cup of the mini marshmallows on top of each brownie (this is why you have to be careful not to overfill with batter. You need room for the marshmallows). Return to oven and bake about 2 minutes or until the marshmallows are nicely browned and slightly puffy (you know, like smores). Let the tins rest on a cooling rack just until you can bear to remove the brownies from the tins. Let the brownies cool completely on the rack.
For the caramel drizzle, combine all the ingredients and microwave, uncovered, for a minute. Stir. Continue microwaving in 30-second zaps and stirring until all the caramels have melted. Drizzle the brownies with the caramel and let the caramel cool and harden. Yummy served with ice cream, of course.
Store for up to 3 days in a covered container. I threw a bunch of mine in the freezer, and they kept quite well, even without the brown sugar!