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Dulce de leche Brownies



David Lebovitz is my favourite blogger. He's witty and charming; he lives in Paris and goes travelling for food around the world and he runs chocolate tours and writes ice cream books. David's list of places to visit in Paris was my travel guide when I visited and I wasn't disappointed at a single place that he recommended. His blog is also chockful of some brilliant recipes and I've made a few of them my favourites over the years. So when I found myself with a jar of dulce de leche, courtesy my friend Rachana, I immediately thought of David's recipe for dulce de leche brownies.

Dulce de leche is caramalised condensed milk. You cook the tin of condensed milk slowly, until it changes flavour and colour to become a jar of candy you can scoop out with a spoon and eat. Which is what I did with most of my tin of dulce. Added flavour bonus if you also sprinkle some sea salt before digging it. But I still have half a tin left after a few days and that's what went into these brownies.

The brownies themselves are intensely chocolatey and dense, with pockets of caramel running through them. You can look up David's recipe for the full batch of 12 brownies. I made 1/3rd the recipe and got myself 4 incredibly decadent brownie cupcakes.

Ingredients
35 grams salted butter
55 grams dark chocolate (I used Callebaut 72%)
1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup dulce de leche

All ingredients should be at room temperature so bring out anything that's in the fridge a couple of hours early. I use callets but if you have bars of chocolate, chop that too. Line four cupcake tins with paper liners.

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add chocolate and stir constantly over very low heat until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Add the egg and whisk to combine, then stir in the sugar, vanilla and the flour. Finally mix in the nuts.

Fill each of your cupcake moulds halfway with the batter. Drop a spoonful of dulce de leche into each and stir with a knife to swirl it. Top with the remaining batter, then drop dollops of dulce de leche on top of the cupcakes and use a knife to swirl the batter again.

Bake for around 30 minutes, until the brownie/cupcakes look firm and cooked through.
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