Well folks, Uncle Jimmy’s done it again.
As I mentioned in this post a while back, Uncle Jimmy’s been making good use of his retirement time in the kitchen. He made these a couple Thanksgiving’s ago. He made a cake that looked like a Peep last Easter. And he introduced these Knock-You-Naked Brownies to me at Thanksgiving. When it was time for dessert, I scanned the table – the usual suspects – pie – cookies – Aunt Kathy’s Eclair Ring – and these chocolate’y, caramel’y, gooey looking brownie things.
“Who made these?”
“Uncle Jimmy”.
Should’ve known.
Now the origin of the nakedness in this title I don’t fully understand. The Pioneer Woman doesn’t have to explain herself though. For anything. All I know is that I ate them at Tday, made them at home, making a few slight modifications and 1) they are insanely easy to make and just oh so rich and decadent and 2) I managed to keep my clothes on.
WIN!
- 1 box (18.5 Ounce) Chocolate Devils Food Cake Mix* (see note below)
- 1/3 cup Evaporated Milk + an additional 1/2 cup Evaporated Milk
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter, Melted
- 60 whole Caramels, Unwrapped
- 1/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks or Chips
- Powdered sugar for sprinkling
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together cake mix, 1/3 cup evaporated milk, and melted butter. Stir together until totally combined. Mixture will be very thick.
- Line a 9x9 inch square baking pan with aluminum foil and spray generously with non-stick cooking spray, all the way up the sides. Press half the cake mixture into the pan and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and set aside.
- In a double boiler (or a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of boiling water) melt caramels with the additional 1/2 cup evaporated milk. When melted and combined, pour mixture over the choclate cake/brownie layer. Sprinkle chocolate chunks or chips as evenly as you can over the caramel.
- Turn out remaining cake/brownie batter on parchment or wax paper. Use your hands to press it into a large square a little smaller than the width of the baking pan. Use a spatula to remove it from the surface, then set it on top of the caramel and chocolate chips. If it tears a little or there are any gaps, its ok.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for several hours. The brownies will be very gooey so they really need to be chilled in order to cut. I actually threw mine in the freezer for about an hour. I also cut the edges off to give them a nice clean edge.
- Leave them chilling until ready to serve and then lift the brownies out of the pan by grabbing the edges of the foil. Sift them with powdered sugar and then slice them into squares.
- *The Pioneer Woman's recipe calls for German Chocolate Cake mix - I couldn't find it at the store, so I just got regular chocolate devils food cake mix and it was just as awesome. Her recipe also calls for pecans which I left out.
- *For the chocolate chunk/chip section, I cut up a few pieces of a Trader Joe's 1lb Dark Chocolate bar and left a few of the chunks large which made for a great texture difference in the caramel layer. Chocolate chips would work just as well though.