Chocolate Turtle Brownies

I'm allergic to walnuts, which is just fine since I don't like them anyway, so I've never made anything "turtle" before tonight. It's an interesting brownie recipe, since you melt semi-sweet chocolate instead of using sugar and unsweetened baking chocolate or unsweetened cocoa powder. Definitely different...

After melting the chocolate and butter together you add 3 eggs. At first I was a little skeptical, thinking that the eggs might scramble or something, but it was fine. As long as you do as the recipe says and melt the chocolate over the lowest heat setting, there should be no scrambled egg pieces in your brownies. That'd be pretty... weird. Anyway, then you add all the dry ingredients and the batter becomes a really thick, difficult-to-stir sort of chocolatey paste. You scrape the paste into a pan and sprinkle it with more chocolate chips and a bunch of walnuts, but what really makes these brownies come together for the eyes is the melted caramel you add after it's done baking.

A funny thing happened with my caramel. I just figured it would be like chocolate and simply melt, but not quite. The caramel and milk mixture actually ROSE and bubbled in the microwave, much like a marshmallow, and immediately went back down once I opened the door. I'm glad I used a big rather than small cereal bowl, otherwise I probably would've had a crazy caramel mess in the microwave, and that would be such a horrible waste of good caramel... It was Werther's for God's sake!

My parents think these brownies are quite excellent. As for myself, I had all the walnut pieces picked off before I tried some. These brownies are incredibly moist and fudgy, and quite sweet. I mean, not only do you have 12 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate and a dozen pieces of caramel, but there's also an extra cup of sugar in this recipe. Damn.

My mom gave this recipe a 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. I'm thinking I'd give it... 3 1/2 or maybe 4 out of 5. If I were to make this again for myself, I'd cut out the walnuts and maybe even the extra cup of chocolate chips on top. I usually eat my brownies plain or with some kind of frosting, so I'm thinking that this brownie recipe with the melted caramel would be pretty divine on its own. I guess that's something you gotta do when you're trying out recipes. Experimenting with the ingredients and such could produce a recipe that is better conducive to one's personal health or taste. In my case, for example, the walnuts are a potential health hazard. xP

Cheers!

~Jesia