Gooey Chocolate Brownies with Dulce de Leche

I am a brownie obsessed girl (if you haven't already realized this while reading this blog!). And whenever my fathers clients from Buenos Aires, Argentina visited us in Mumbai, India they could not enter our doorstep with a good supply of Dulce de Leche. And if I could have, I would have eaten the heavenly caramel with a spoon right out of the jar. It was spooned over ice cream (OMG!), rolled in thin crepes with caramelized sugar atop (remember those Sunday morning pancake breakfasts I talked about?), on top of bread and so much more.


So when Purple Foodie featured this fabulous brownie recipe from Baked, NYC, how could I not bake these? Plus, she said that it was super rich, gooey, intensely chocolatey, which made it even harder to resist! 


Purple Foodie spread three toppings of chocolate chips, dulce de leche and walnuts on a third of the batter. It gave her one batch of brownies with three varieties. However, since dulce de leche and I have our true love, I decided she was the winner of it all! 

Adapted from: Baked
Yield: 24 bars

1 1/4th cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt
2 tbsp dark unsweetened cocoa powder
11 oz. / 310g dark chocolate (60-72% cacao)
1 cup / 2 sticks / 225 g butter
2 cups / 400g granulated sugar
5 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Additional topping options:
Walnuts
Chocolate chips
Dulce de Leche
Smoked Sea Salt (I haven't tried this, but will be doing so shortly)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C. Butter a 9×13 baking pan or line it with baking parchment (I used a 9×9 square, light coloured tin).
2. Whisk the flour, salt and cocoa together. If you’re going to be using salted butter, you should skip the salt here.
3. In a large bowl put together the butter and chocolate and set it over a pan of simmering water until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Add the sugar and stir so that it dissolves faster and is well combined.
4. Once the mixture is at room temperature, add in 3 eggs and whisk until combined. Add the remaining two eggs and vanilla.. Do not overbeat!
5. Fold in the flour mixture into the bowl ful of chocolate goodness until just combined. Again, don’t overdo – better to have a few streaks of flour than an overmixed batter.
6. Pour the batter into the tin and top with dulce de leche spooned over (this being dense will sink into the brownie batter giving you gorgeous pockets of South American goodness in every bite).
7. Bake for 30 minutes until a wooden skewer comes out without being drippy (it won’t be all that clean in the dulce de leche section – this will always be gooey!)
8. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely before cutting into pieces.

Tip from Purple Foodie: It’s recommended to remove the brownie from the oven when it is just slightly underdone. But hold the horses and wait until it’s completely cooled to cut.

Storage: Tightly covered, these will keep for 3 days. Sometimes these even get better after 24 hours. But don’t really bother because they’ll be gone in a flash.