Cake mix brownies
These simple to make caramel chocolate brownies are so decadent and delicious!
Servings: 14 servings
Ingredients
- 1 chocolate cake mix
- 1 can evaporated milk
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 30 caramels, I used Kraft
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ¾-1 cup whole pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9x19 pan. You can simply spray, or line the bottom with parchment as I did.
- In a medium-sized saucepan, preferably heavy-bottomed, open the caramels and put them in the pan. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl, add cake mix and ¾ cup evaporated milk. Mix well. Spread a little over half of the batter in the bottom of a 9x9 pan. It will be thick and really sticky. I like to spray my hands or wet them and press them in the bottom. Don't worry about perfection here, it will spread and even out when it bakes. Place in oven. This will be par-baked, that's partially baked.
- While it is baking, add butter and ½ cup evaporated milk to the pan with caramels. Place over medium heat. Melt caramels, mixing really consistently. They will burn quickly, so be careful with them.
- Once brownies are partially baked, mine took about 10 minutes, remove them from the oven.
- Spread the caramel mixture over top, spreading almost to the edges. Next, sprinkle chocolate chips over caramel, then pecans. Last, take the remaining batter and working with small amounts spread it across the top. Again, it will be very sticky. I prefer to do this with my fingers, so make sure to spray or get them wet.
- Spread the small amounts out into small disk shapes ( about ¼ inch thick), nothing perfect here then lay them across the top. It won't cover the whole top, and that's just fine. This is not a perfect type of recipe, so don't sweat it!
- Return to oven and continue to bake until the caramel bubbles on the edges and the top layer of cake batter is cooked through. Mine took about 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven.
- At this point, it is up to you how you proceed. You can either scoop it or eat it right away while it is warm. It's really good with some ice cream! Or you can allow them to cool and cut into squares as we did. I prefer them this way. The choice is your's though, they really are amazing either way.
Notes
- If you want chocolate cake mix brownies, you'll have to start with a chocolate cake mix. However, you can easily customize this recipe with a wide variety of cake mix flavors. If you're in need of an easy dessert in a hurry, just use whatever you have on hand, whether that's a red velvet cake mix, yellow cake mix, or strawberry cake mix. Whichever flavor cake mix you go with, you'll get a delicious variation that still has the same amazing brownie texture.
- Try mixing toffee bits, white chocolate chips, or even peanut butter chips into the brownie batter. You don't have to stick to my mix-ins for your own cake mix brownies. Creativity is truly your friend for this recipe.
- If you prefer extra gooey brownies and want to get into them right away, scoop them out while they are still warm and serve them with ice cream. This is so delicious!