Dulce de Leche Brownies

My mom and my neighbor were not the only people who decided to employ my baking skills during my stint at home over break. My sister, who also works at a school, requested some goodies for the students she spends her days with. While I questioned her wanting to give school children sugar in the middle of the day, it didn't stop me from finding the perfect treat for the kinder : brownies.

But these grade schoolers were getting more than your (kinder)garden variety chocolate treat.
Dulce de leche brownies by David Lebovitz are far from elementary, am I right?

Before & after their 45 minutes of oventime

And so  I embarked on the two-day process of making them. Ok, maybe it was just 12 hours. I only said two days because it sounds more impressive I made the dulce de leche in a crock pot/slow cooker overnight.  Before discovering this technique on A Year of Slow Cooking, I took my chances with boiling cans of sweetened condensed milk on the stove, for 2-3 hours. Some people are hesitant to use this method because it requires a vigilant eye to  watch that the can in the pot stays completely covered with water (or else there might be some explosive results...).  But this crock pot method was a lifesaver. Or, you could use the much quicker and safer method (pie dish in the oven with a water bath) recommended by David Lebovitz. Since I had the time, though, I thought I'd give the slow cooker method a try.

One night before I went up to bed, I made sure there was plenty of water in our slow cooker to cover the SCM. My parents wouldn't enjoy coming downstairs to a kitchen covered in caramel before they headed off to work in the morning... That is, if the loud BOOM didn't wake them up in the middle of the night in the first place.

So? There was no boom. I came downstairs the next morning and took the can out of crock pot, let it cool, and then scooped out thick, dark dulce de leche.

I almost ate the entire batch right there... but then, of course, I thought of the children. And I got started on the brownies.

Pre- and post- swirling....



My sister said the kids went crazy for these. It remains unclear if she was referring to how much they liked the brownies or how strong the sugar rush hit...