Brownies with a Twist

Update:   I found the post that inspired this post.  Check out Cookies and Cups to see the original post.


This weekend my husband left on a 10 day road trip.  With the house to myself and nothing pressing I did a bit of baking.  Earlier in the week I had read a blog post about pecan pie mixed with brownies.  It didn't look particularly yummy - I'm not even that big of a fan of pecan pie - but the idea stuck with me all week.  When an idea gets stuck in my mind like that it means I'm intrigued and I won't stop thinking about it until I tried it.  The recipe on the blog (unfortunately since I didn't want to make it when I read it I didn't save the link and I can't find it now...) used a frozen pecan pie.  When I was at the grocery store earlier this week I saw a boxed mix for Pecan bars, which reminded me of this recipe again.  So I picked it up. 

I lined the pan with foil to make it easy to pull the whole thing out and cut it into pieces.  Then I just followed the directions on the box (with one modification, I'll explain below).  The recipe starts with a crust that you bake for about 10 minutes or until it's brown around the edges.

It never did get brown - even though I left it in the oven for 20 minutes.  I think my oven might be off temperature wise...  While it was in the oven I got the next step ready with the modification.

On the box they had a variation for Chocolate pecan bars.  I decided to make them that way because you can never have too much chocolate.  But I may have found the limit with this recipe!

I spread the pecans and chocolate chips over the cooked crust and then poured the filling mix over the top of the nuts.  The filling didn't cover the nuts and chips so they ended up on the top.

After 30 minutes in the oven I pulled them out.  This time the oven seemed to cook as it should have.  Maybe it's just a browning issue?

I stuck the whole pan in the freezer so the bars would cool down quicker.  While they did I moved on to a different recipe...  Once the bars were cool I got started on the brownies.

For the brownies I choose this recipe.  It's one I picked out a while ago to try.  I figured it was good as any to try with this experiment. 

It started out different than most brownie recipes.  You melted the butter on the stove and then stirred in the sugar and cooked it on low for a couple of minutes.  Not sure what that does...

I dumped the butter and sugar mix into my stand mixer, added cocoa (dutch processed), eggs, salt, baking powder and vanilla and mixed it all up.  Then I added the flour and mixed it until combined. 

Now it was time to add the pecan bars.  First I cut them into bite size pieces.

I also added chocolate chips (as called for in the recipe).  By the way the pecan bars were very good on their own - I'd highly recomend them!

It was a bit of work to mix the pecan bar pieces and chocolate chips.  The batter was very thick and sticky.  But eventually I got all the pieces covered with brownie batter.

The whole mess went into a 13x9 inch pan and into the oven.

The brownies should have taken about 30 minutes to cook but when I checked them with a toothpick the dough was still uncooked.  All told I cooked them for about 50 minutes. 

So what's the verdict?  These are very rich brownies.  If I'm say they're rich that's saying something.  I have a high tolerance for rich desserts.  The pecan bar pieces are like having pecans, caramel and crust pieces in the brownies.  But the proportion isn't quite right.  If I made these again I'd half the brownie recipe and bake the whole thing in a 7x11" pan so you had a nice mix of caramel, pecans and crust in each bite.

Would I recommend them?  Yes - the brownies are incredibly rich and chocolately.  I'd strongly recommend dutch processed cocoa if you do make them and start with a tiny piece!  :-)