My Favourite Brownie Gone Oreo

This is an impromptu post. Something totally unplanned, impulsive and absolutely as far from my usual personality as it can possibly get. But I deserved it, I personally think.

As far as my holidays go, today was a so-so day. I suffered moments of intense frustration and lip biting and I slipped three times slightly in my driveway. I did cut a beautiful fruit salad to serve up to 35 people, but that was about the top of my day. Until around 2 hours ago.
I’m sure though that you don’t want to keep hearing about my day (especially today) so I am going to get straight to the point. It wasn’t the best until 2 hrs ago. And I deserved to get it back up to my holiday standard.

Now moving on… 🙂

I have posted a couple of different brownie recipes before. There was this one and this one and then a couple of fancier ones with one of the ones mentioned before turning into this one and a beautiful creation of this one. Yes, satisfy your curiosity and visit these ones. You won’t regret it.

“And even as I wander,
I’m keeping you in sight”

But each time I have made a brownie and posted it up, it had never come up to the standard of my first ever brownie recipe. And lately, I began to doubt myself. What if my memory was playing tricks on me? Maybe I am wrong, and my favourite brownie recipe was just an ordinary job I enjoyed before I really dug into brownie madness.

“I’ve been running round in circles in my mind…”

So today, feeling a little down and with a craving for brownies which has been building up since around 3 days ago, I decided to stuff all and make my brownie recipe again. And I proved my memory long-term and perfectly capable.

“It’s time to bring this ship into the shore,
And throw away the oars, forever.”

These brownies are the perfect mix of fudgy and chewy, the crust edges make me cry with their taste and it has this certain gooey factor (especially when you bake them for 5 minutes less than the original recipe – cheeky ;))

“I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for”

The batter is so thick and fudgy that even spreading it is difficult. I blame this happily on the amount of eggs in this recipe. And you won’t believe the number of variations possible with this recipe – you can find the recipe for my favourite caramel variation below 🙂

Can I let you in on a secret? I doubt you will believe me. But when I give you the link to the recipe, you will have to. As you see this pictures, you have no choice but to believe me. How can I say these are the perfect fudgy, soft, perfect chewy brownie when it contains no melted chocolate.

I’ll just cover my ears while you all give a high pitch squeal of terror…

*****************************************************************************

Feeling better? Calmer? Shall I get you a cup of tea? Maybe with some brownie? Oh no, your hyperventilating again, trying to claw me because I am some kind of monster to you now.

Please relax. Trust me. When has any recipe I have posted taken a wrong turn for you?

“I can’t fight this feeling any longer.
And yet I’m still afraid to let it flow”

Yes, ok, there is no melted chocolate in this recipe. But the chocolate-y goodness is so pure you could never tell. I promise. Because instead of a wussy 1-2 tbs of cocoa powder, this recipe contains 90g of it. 90g of pure, absolute chocolate from the core of the bean. 90g which is the most cocoa powder I have ever seen in my life in one recipe.

“I said there is no reason for my fear”

Do you non-Aussie and non-Brits have a show on TV called Masterchef? Well I got my brownie recipe (obviously) from the Australian Masterchef first season.  It was new, it was hot, it was actually sizzling as we saw a range of lawyers/engineers/doctors give up their careers to pursue their passions in the culinary world. We saw annoying whiny ladies and beefed up men but we also saw those who truly had a dream. And I loved it. And it loved me back by giving me this recipe. I can still remember sitting and watching this particular master class, my mouth watering over all the aspects.

1. The name – Chocolate Gluttony – I mean seriously, are you salivating or is it just me? Stupid question, of course you are!!!
2. Ice cream
3. Hot fudge sauce
4. Brownie pieces
5. Spun sugar – Dying from dehydration due to lack of water through salivating

“And I can’t fight this feeling anymore…”

Being inexperienced, naive and slightly more amateur than I am now, I didn’t bother looking for all the usually-makes-a-good-brownie factors and purely went on the aesthetic appearance and the fact that Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris were crying out in delight every time they stuck their spoons into their sundaes.

And it was the best amateur mistake I ever made.

“What started out as friendship,
Has grown stronger”

Which leads me back to today. Where I made this brownie again after so long. And to my delight, it remains the best brownie I have ever had, beating the fudginess, beating the crispy chewy exterior, beating everything in any other brownie I have made.

Now where do the Oreos come into this? Good question.

When I came into the kitchen, determined to make these rich pieces of heaven, this was what I found:

Ben & Jerry’s Sweet Cream & Cookies Ice Cream + an unopened packet of Oreos in my baking cupboard which had been forgotten (forgive me)

“I tell myself that I can’t hold out forever”

And then I had a spurt of need, a spurt of intelligence and a spurt of memory jogging. So many blogs have Oreo brownies on their blogs. Why can’t I? And what better way to show it than in my favourite brownies ever? So that is what I did.

In my small tin, I drop some of that thick gooey batter and spread is around using one whole Oreo.

Leaving that in its final position, I added in as many Oreos as possible to the base, making a semi-cookie bottom.
I then folded in as many chopped Oreos as I possibly desired into my batter – since it is so thick, fold gently to avoid over crushing the beauties within.

Smoothing out the top, the only thing I had left to do was put a bunch of Oreos on top. So it became a kind of Oreo- brownie sandwich. Oh. I like the sound of that.

And it turned out to be the most fantastic way of incorporating Oreos. In every bite, there was a touch of warm biscuit or refreshing sugary cream. In every bite, I found a little bit of biscuit love.

“You give my life direction,
You make everything so clear”

This is turning into an insanely long post now (:D) so I’ll leave it to you now to get over your fear of no-chocolate-in-brownie and make these brownies. Stat. Pronto. Whatever just do it! I didn’t change anything in the recipe exact cut down the sugar to 2 cups and add in a touch of coffee and vanilla essence. Please do not change it in anyway like adding melted chocolate or using brown sugar – make the original before you change it.

I promise you won’t regret it. I’m certainly not and I think you can tell. So welcome to my favourite brownie recipe onto this blog!

***Caramel Base Chocolate Brownie Adaptation – Original Recipe Adaptation By Choc Chip Uru

• Instead of melting the butter and then mixing in sugar, make the base exactly like the caramel sauce from my chocolate caramel snickers cupcakes. See this post for pictures and a tutorial. Go up to the step where the caramel sauce is perfectly browned and combined and before any cream or vanilla is added.
• Let cool slightly (but not enough to harden) and then continue with the recipe as usual by beating in cocoa then eggs etc.
• Instead of putting in dark chocolate chunks, nuts (or in my case, Oreos) fold through some chopped up chewy caramels (really small)
• Pour in half the batter into your tin, topped with chocolate caramel chocolate like Hershey’s caramel kisses then pour over remaining half of the batter

“And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might”

Au revoir till tomorrow my friends – I’ll meet you with a big spoon of Nutella in my fist 😀 to commemorate my Nutella Baking Week of 2012!

P.S. The song lyrics which randomly keep popping up are from a song made to revere your favourite brownies – Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon – you agree no?

Check it out on YouTube here 🙂