this is not for people watching calories. noooooo. definitely not
Alrighty… y’all obviously have a much bigger sweet tooth than you do a veggie tooth! What happened to New Year’s Resolutions? To eating healthy? I’ve never had so many people ask me for a recipe as I have when I mentioned that I’d made Kahlua Brownies!
But who doesn’t love brownies? Crazy people, that’s who. 😉 When I was a kid, anything chocolate, like brownies, cake, cookies, had to be accompanied with a big icy cold glass of milk. Now that I’m grown up and lactose intolerant (I have no tolerance for lactose!), I settle for a cup of tea. But these would be amazing with a big glass of milk – not to mention all that bone strengthening calcium you’d be getting!
Unfortunately, I made and photographed them back in August and I was having a hard time remembering where I got the recipe from. I also wasn’t terribly happy with the photography so I had planned on skipping these as a post.
However, I do remember where I got the inspiration and the Salted Caramel Sauce from: this post on Tartelette. As an aside – Helene not only knows how to bake (she is a trained pastry chef) but I adore her photography. Her site feeds the visual needs of my soul!
I did use her Salted Caramel Sauce recipe but I didn’t follow the brownie recipe (hers is gluten free, mine was not). When I saw hers was modified from a Martha Stewart recipe I headed over to the Martha site and ploughed through a few thousands of brownie recipes.
This was the closest thing I could find to Helene’s recipe and I substituted the espresso powder with the 1/4 cup of Kahlua that the recipe on Tartelette called for.
And now I have a brownie craving. Thanks all of you. Thanks very, very, very much. I think I better go walk 10km…
This one I remembered to put the caramel sauce on! lol
Kahlua Brownies
based on the Deep, Dark Brownies – Martha Stewart Recipe
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon best-quality cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for pan
- 1/4 cup of Kahlua
- 5 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup light-brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-by-8-inch square baking pan. Line with parchment paper and butter parchment.
- In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, and salt; set aside
- In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine butter. Place over low heat and stir until butter has melted. Add chocolate, and stir constantly until mixture is smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in both sugars until well combined.
- Add eggs and vanilla and Kahlua and continue stirring until well incorporated and mixture no longer appears grainy.
- Sift flour mixture over batter, and stir until just combined.
- Pour batter into prepared baking pan; smooth top with the back of a wooden spoon or a spatula. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, 28 to 30 minutes. Be sure not to over bake. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into 9 brownies.
You can head over to Tartelette for the Salted Caramel Sauce Recipe because the site is definitely worth a browse – lots of yummy things there! My only word of caution is to be careful not to burn the sauce – I did on my first attempt!
Photography
I’m going to leave the photography out here. It was so long ago that I don’t remember the details at all. And it’s not my best work. I’d do the whole thing very differently this time around. It is using dreaded overhead kitchen light!
Awwww. You do love me! No more waaaailing 🙂
good! cuz it was really LOUD! lol. Enjoy!
I think the second picture is good.
And gives me a craving for strawberries… 🙂
(I always wonder how you measure butter in a cup… doesn’t that lead to a big mess?)
Sticks of butter have the cup markings on them. 1/2 cup is one whole stick and so on and so forth 🙂
we did learn a water displacement method in home economics class when I was in the 8th grade and I don’t think I’ve ever used it again!
but yes, like Erica said, in N. America butter is packaged in blocks and sticks. A block is 454g (2 cups) and a stick is 125g (1/2 cup). Usually all you have to do is unwrap a couple of “sticks” and pop them in the bowl. The packaging usually has markers on it showing where to cut for 1/2 cup, 1/4 cup etc. Margarine is usually sold in tubs so it’s a bit more difficult to measure but you can buy it packaged in boxes of 12 sticks sometimes.
Unlike the US, Canada is on the metric system but recipes (and height/weight measurements) are the two places you rarely see it used. And weirder still is I weigh everything, except my weight, in metric. lol.
Margarine can be found anywhere around here in 4-stick packs. Butter sometimes in 2-stick packs, even! 4 sticks = 1lb, too.
I know but she’s in Switzerland.. they’re on the metric system so lbs in a recipe aren’t very meaningful. And we’re metric too so all packaging is in grams. I know what a pound is but when you get into ounces, I’m lost. I need grams and milligrams.
Yum, yum, yum!!!!
I’ve made those brownies before (without the espresso) and they are delicious! Next time I’ll have to try them with the salted caramel sauce.
the original recipe also called for chocolate chips but that just seemed too rich and chocolate-y even for me!