My Christmas baking seemed to be characterized by my screwing up recipes I've made for years. My go-to biscotti recipe fell apart as I was slicing it for its second baking. My cut-out cookies kept breaking. I even botched one of my easiest recipes -- chocolate caramel brownies. (The photo here is of them done correctly!)This brownie recipe includes German Chocolate cake mix, evaporated milk, and so on. You are supposed to make a brownie type mixture, put half in a pan and bake it for eight minutes or so. Then you add caramel, chocolate chips, and the rest of the brownie mixture.
I hadn't made it in awhile, and layered everything in the pan at once, forgetting to bake the bottom layer first. As a result, they were much flatter than usual. The rub of it is that I had decided to bake two pans at a time -- so I messed up two whole pans of brownies. They weren't terrible, but they weren't good enough to put in gifts or take anywhere. We're still snacking on them.
For grins, here's the correct version of the recipe I use:
Caramel Brownies
1 pkg. German chocolate cake mix
3/4 c. melted butter
2/3 c. (5-oz can) evaporated milk, divided
1 bag (14 oz) caramels
12 oz. package chocolate chips (I use semisweet)
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix together cake mix, butter, and 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Pat half of the mixture in the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Bake for 8 minutes.
While the bottom layer is baking, peel the caramels. Place in a saucepan with 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Heat and stir until all caramels are melted.
Remove brownies from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Drizzle caramel sauce over chocolate chips. Drop the rest of the brownie mixture in dollops on top of th caramel.
Bake for an additional 20 minutes. Remove and let cool.