Kitchen Experiments: Orange-Butterscotch Brownies

One of my ex-colleagues, a beautiful and gracious lady called SS recently hosted a friends' pow-wow at her place. The invite was generous - "Just bring yourselves and let us know the tipple of your choice"  - and the promise of a long evening spent in the company of good friends made us all look forward to hotfooting it over to SS's and her husband AS's place.

Of course I had to take something along (I suffer from a Nigella-esque complex of feeding people) despite SS assuring me that I needn't bring anything other than my sweet self. Ahem. :P

Inspiration struck in the form of brownies - I mean, who doesn't like a rich, moist chocolate brownie? Its a definite crowd pleaser! But yes, no one wants a plain old brownie that is easily available even at your corner grocer's these days. I wanted to whip up something special for the special bunch of people I was going to meet. The solution - Double Decker Brownies!

Well, at least  they were MEANT to be that way. :D

A few Google searches for brownie and blondie recipes (there are thousands of them, pick any you like), a quick rooting through the kitchen cupboards, and my usual cavalier attitude towards fixed recipes - and I was set. I had planned to do one batch of blondie batter - with butterscotch chips and orange extract - and one batch of classic chocolate brownie batter with chocolate chips - and then layer them atop each other and bake. But of course, the patient and multi-step method for achieving this was not me, so I mixed up a master batter (like a master stock or sauce!) - of butter, eggs, and brown+white sugar - and then divided it into 2 batches. Flavoured one with orange extract and  stirred in some butterscotch chips, and flavoured the other with cocoa, vanilla extract and chocolate chips.

Everything seemed to be chugging along perfectly, till disaster struck while ladling the batter into the baking tin. The blondie mixture went in first, and the idea was to gently pour the chocolate mixture on top, to produce a double-layered ebony-and-ivory brownie. But for some reason the chocolate mixture was way heavier than the blondie one and IT SUNK into the blondie mixture rather than remaining as 2 distinct layers. :(

Oh, well. "I'll call them marbled brownies", muttered me to meself and gave the mixture a quick stir to give a nice abstract marbled effect and went on to bake them. :D

I was so intent on my invention that while there are photos of the prep stage, there are none of the final product.  :( So no pics in this post. :( :( :(

The brownies were out in record time and while they seemed a little cake-like (not gooey enough!) when they were just taken out of the tin, a night in the fridge made them go dense and moist like a good brownie should.

Only pitfall - the butterscotch chips sunk to the base of the pan while baking, and with the brown sugar, made a crunchy, golden crust at the bottom - rich and buttery and sweet. Brownie purists would not approve of a crust at the bottom of a brownie. But one bite of that shatteringly crunchy shell, scented with butter and orange.....and I was deaf to all purists. :P