Loaded Malted Milk Brownies with Salted Caramel and White Chocolate

For some reason, holidays are really sneaking up on me this year!  I just realized last Friday that Easter was about a week away! So since my brain is still in the beginning of April somewhere, I’m sad to say our family is going out to eat for Easter dinner.  I know!  It hurts just to even admit it!  However, as sad as I am to give up cooking Easter dinner, I will still be making dessert.  I’m just too spoiled.  I’ve really tried, on several occasions, to enjoy dessert out but I’m pretty much always disappointed.  So I’m dedicating this week to trying out some ideas for dessert.

This one is on the rather decadent side 🙂 I had ordered some malted milk powder from King Arthur Flour and on the back of the bag was a recipe for malted milk brownies with chocolate chips, nuts and caramel.  I don’t know whether the recipe just struck a cord with me or it was the fact that I left my electric mixer elsewhere and my butter was still cold so I needed a “by hand” recipe, but it sounded good.

Now I’ve never been the type to get a recipe off a bag but I figured with a few changes perhaps I could turn this into a fun treat that could qualify as more of a dessert and less an afternoon snack.  Success!  First, they had to be cuter and few things in life are cuter than cupcakes so the brownies had to be baked in a muffin tin.  Then, home made salted caramel replaced the store bought caramels the recipe called for and finally they had to be “iced” with an Easter-worthy color hence a colored white chocolate 🙂  Alright so there were a few bumps in the road.  When you bake brownies in a muffin tin you have to lower the temperature, I was distracted and baked them at 350 so mine were a little cakier than I like and I did not spray or oil down my paper liners so you can imagine the fun we’ve had peeling paper off of sticky caramel…but once you did get the paper off they were delicious!  Sweet, chewy, fun and no plates or forks needed 🙂 Oh and I’ve noted the changes that needed to be made so you will have a much easier time eating these!

 Whisk together the dry ingredients, including sugar

In another bowl, whisk melted butter, eggs and vanilla together

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and fold in chocolate chips and walnuts

until you have one big, thick, gooey batter, like this!

bake until golden brown and beautiful

top the cooled brownies with salted caramel

melt some white chocolate in a small bowl and stir in food coloring

“ice” the brownies and enjoy!

Malted Milk Brownie “Cupcakes” with Salted Caramel and White Chocolate
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour
Yields approximately 20 “cupcakes”

Ingredients:

3/4 cup malted milk powder
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

salted caramel

1 cup white chocolate baking chips
food coloring, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees (F).  Line 2 muffin pans with 20 paper liners.  Spray the liners with cooking spray and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the malted milk powder, brown sugar, flour, salt and baking powder.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter and vanilla.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients.  Stir with a wooden spoon just until combined.  Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

3. Using a medium cookie scoop, portion out the batter into the liners.  Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the brownies are puffed and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Remove brownies to a wire rack and cool.  Once they are cool, wipe the insides of any of the paper liner that is left exposed with a pastry brush dipped in a little vegetable oil.  This will help prevent the caramel from sticking too much to the liners.

4. Make the salted caramel as per the directions.  As soon as the caramel is done, spoon it over the top of the brownies.  I used a a regular soup spoon to pour enough on to cover the top of the brownie-its probably about a tablespoon and a half each.

5. Place the white chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and melt according to package directions.  Stir in a a few drops of gel food coloring if desired.  Spoon the white chocolate over the top of the caramel and smooth it out so it covers the surface.  Let cool and harden completely.  These can be eaten as soon as everything has cooled but the flavor really develops after a letting sit for a few hours.