Easy Caramel Brownies (with video link)

# 14 in the 2024 Christmas Countdown are these decadent gems!

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that I took cooking classes when I was in school. I took a semester of it 7th-9th grades and another one sometime in high school. But the ones I took 7th-9th grade were far more memorable due to the wonderful teacher I had for all 3. She was very kind, easy to learn from, and managed the classes well. In these courses, we made many things that I really enjoyed, with this being one of my very favorites (from 9th grade "advanced" cooking :))



Link to my YouTube "making of the recipe" video: https://youtu.be/-nFPZF_rclg

Ingredients:

1 box chocolate cake mix (NOTE: do NOT use Devil's Food; I made these with Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix)

1 cup evaporated milk, divided

1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened/room temp (I used butter)

35 caramels

12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

**One time when I went to make these, I discovered that I did not have any evaporated milk in the pantry (d'oh!). A quick search on the Internet yielded that I could substitute powdered milk made at double concentration, which is what I did and it worked perfectly!**

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 350°F.

2. Combine cake mix, 2/3 c.of the evaporated milk, and the butter in a bowl until smooth (make sure no streaks of butter remain):

3. Spread 1/2 of batter in UNGREASED 13 x 9 metal baking pan:

4. Bake for 15 min.

5. While this part is baking, heat the caramels and remaining evaporated milk (1/3 c.) in saucepan over low heat.  Stir constantly until a caramel sauce forms and no chunks of caramel remain (this will take at least 10 min., do not attempt to rush it with higher heat).  It will go from looking like this:

to looking like this:

6. After removing the pan from the oven with 1/2 batter baked, sprinkle the chocolate chips over what has baked:

7. Drizzle caramel sauce over the chocolate chips and baked batter:

8. Drop remaining 1/2 of batter in spoonfuls over caramel mixture:

9. Bake for additional 25 to 30 minutes (until center is set).  It will come out looking like this:

8. Cool completely and enjoy when it looks more like this: