Kapora's Journey: Cream Egg Brownies

Sometimes late at night--after Bubba has gone to bed--I browse through foodgawker.com (it is like porn for chefs). There are so many great recipes. They all come from food bloggers who submit them to the site. The moderators at foodgawker are very tough, I have read that they care more about the quality of food photography than the actual quality of the food, but every recipe looks really good! I have submitted several times, but so far I have always been denied. Mostly due to lighting issues in my pictures, or things like that. Nevertheless I will keep submitting 'til I get in, and in the mean time I will surf their site for more food porn.

This is one of those recipes I found on foodgawker, and it is also making the rounds on pinterest. Thanks to the original blog Love and Olive Oil the Easter Bunny has an awesome new recipe. (I adjusted the cream filling a bit to make it a little gooey-er. It was a bit thick when I made it so I added a bit more butter and corn syrup.)

Here's what you'll need:

For Brownies:

2/3 cup flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 ounces milk chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For Cream Filling:
3/8 cup light corn syrup
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

For Chocolate Glaze:
3 ounces milk chocolate chips (1/2 cup)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes

For me the key to getting complex recipes like this done with Bubba around is preparation. I like to measure out all of the ingredients ahead of time so all I have to do is add them in the right order. You can pre-mix some of them together (like eggs and vanilla, and the cocoa powder salt, and flour)

This is my "double boiler" it is really just a sauce pan filled with about 2 inches of water, with a metal bowl on top (remember to use a pot holder, the metal bowl gets a little toasty!)

First melt one stick of butter and about one cup (6 oz) of chocolate chips with the burner on medium- low heat. (The trick is to get it just warm enough to melt the chocolate and butter--we don't need to cook it.)

I just used a fork to stir, but a whisk would do fine too.

Be sure to keep stirring to mix thoroughly.

There, nice and smooth.

Take mixture off the heat (I took the bowl to a table and set it on a pot holder, so I would have more room) and add 1/4 cup white and 1/2 cup brown sugar.

Mix 'til combined and smooth.

Add the two pre-beaten eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Blend 'til smooth.

Add the flour, cocoa powder, and salt mixture. And fold into batter.

There. Almost done.

Pour into 8 x 8 baking dish and bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or 'til a tooth pick comes out clean.

When finished baking, cool on a wire rack. It needs to be completely cooled before adding the cream filling to the top.

While you wait for it to cool you can make the cream filling.

Mix 3 tablespoons of butter at room temp with 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 3/8 cup of light corn syrup.

Mix 'til smooth.

Add the powdered sugar a little at a time mixing between, until nice and smooth.

Ta- Da! Filling! (Try not to eat it all while you wait for the brownies to cool)

Cream filling time!
You can separate out 1/4 of the filling and dye it yellow to get the "full cream egg effect", but I didn't have any yellow food coloring so I left it all white. Tastes the same either way. ; )