Way Better than a Milky Way Homemade Chocolate Truffels

I discovered the Milky Way bar when I was 13 and my boyfriend got me a box of mini chocolate bars for Valentines day. Even though we went out for a grand total of 3 weeks, that boy changed my life. Whether you're a chocolate snob, a lover of anything sweet, or call them by their original name: Mars Bars (ooooh, I just love saying that and I have no idea why) you have to admit that the combination of chocolate, nougat, and caramel is pretty freaking amazing. And if you're like me, you have to admit that you really really just need to experiment with them.

After several attempts at cupcakes, a now semi-famous recipe for brownies, cookies, and an absolutely heavenly recipe for rice krispie treats, using these magic chocolate bars, I decided it was high time I made them myseld, and boy oh boy, am I glad I did. These are not your average chocolate bar. These are rich and salty and malty and bitter. They're buttery and extra chocolatey, and toffee-ish, and amazing. Make them. Please.

                                

I made mine in an ice tray because I spent my baking and cooking budget for the month on chocolate, a giant offset spatula, and a new springform pan. If you want a more traditional looking bar, you can use a chocolate bar mold, or make even smaller bars in a truffle mold but mine broke last time I made truffles, just about a month ago. I know, I have really really good luck in the candy making department.

You do have to temper the chocolate, which can be a challenge, but there really is an easier way than the marble slab method that leaves non-professionals like me with a giant brown mess. You can find easy directions and very detailed instructions and explanations here. Even I was able to follow these directions and end up with shiny chocolate, and I seem to have an inexplicable ability to fudge even the easiest process just because it's labeled as important.

Better than my Favorite Chocolate Bar

Chocolate Caramel
1/4 cup of unsalted butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup milk (any type)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup light corn syrup
6 oz chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp fleur de sel

Malt Nougat
You're going to have some extra, but I can't seem to get the recipe reduced to 
just the right amount. The leftovers are really good frozen in little squares.
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
2 egg whites
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbs malted milk powder
(Optional toasted almonds for a riff on a Snickers)

For the Caramel:
Combine all ingredients but the salt, chocolate and vanilla in a heavy sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring only every once in a while, until it comes to a boil. Continue cooking until it reaches 240ºF, just under soft ball stage. Remove from the heat and cool to about 200ºF, stir in chocolate and whisk until completely melted. Add vanilla. Pour into a piping bag and wait until the caramel has reached about 80º before piping a layer of caramel over the molded chocolate. top the caramel with a small pinch of fleur de sel. Cool completely before topping with the nougat.

For the Nougat:
Combine sugar, corn syrup, and water in saucepan. Boil the sugar combination, until it reaches 260ºF, without stirring. While syrup is cooking, beat egg whites to form stiff peaks. Add salt and the hot syrup, beating constantly, pouring slowly at first, and speeding up as the eggs temper and get used to the heat. When mixture is stiff, beat with a wooden spoon until creamy. Add the malt and vanilla (almonds), and return to the mixer until the nougat has an almost mousse like texture. When the nougat is still warm (about 70º) pop it into a piping bag and top the salted caramel. Cool completely before finishing it off with the last thin layer of tempered chocolate.


Temper about 1/2 lb of bittersweet chocolate and brush a layer across the bottom and sides of your molds. Cool inverted to allow some dripping.
When cooled, add caramel a little less than 1/2 way up the molds using a piping bag, squeeze bottle or very small spoon(caramel should be about 80ºF) Cool to about 50º.
Fill almost all the way to the top with warm nougat (80º) leaving room for a final layer of chocolate.
After cooling the nougat to about 50º, fill molds to the top with more tempered chocolate and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, until completely set. Unmold and enjoy! 

FlufferNutter Cookies

My parents make me a grand total of 2 FlufferNutter sandwiches when I was a kid. Both of these 2 sandwiches were for my birthday, and both of them were absolutely amazing. I did not grow up surrounded by sweets, by any stretch of the imagination, which is probably why I am so crazy about them now. Because neither of my parents were really fans of the sweet stuff, both of these sandwiches were adulterated with slices of banana. I'm sure that this was my parent's attempt to make the sandwich resemble an actual meal instead of a dessert, and instill in me a habit of healthy eating, but it sort of had the opposite effect. Instead, it instilled in me a deep love of the combination of peanut butter, marshmallows, and bananas. They have been combined with graham crackers and chocolate in many s'mores, and even found their way into a cookie. A really really good cookie, by the way.

These cookies are made with browned butter and whole wheat pastry flour to really bring out the toffee flavor, and impart a warm flavor that tastes a little like graham crackers. You could totally add a healthy helping of dark chocolate to the mix, something I seriously wish I'd done. Instead, I used chocolate marshmallows, because they were the only ones I had on hand. I found out the hard way that they taste no different from the regular white kind, so I don't recommend spending the extra couple bucks for the brown sort.
The marshmallows will also melt out of the cookies and caramelize on the pan, so make sure you use parchment or a Silpat, and DO NOT overcook these guys, because the caramel surrounding the cookies is one of the best parts.

Mmmmm... Gooey caramelized marshmallow

FlufferNutter Cookies
Makes about 30 cookies

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup gently packed light brown sugar
1 egg, 1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 tsp flaked sea salt

Preheat oven to 350ºF, line 2 large (3 normal sized) baking sheets with parchment paper.
Brown the butter by heating, with salt, over medium-low heat until golden flecks start to sink on the bottom. Remove from heat, cool slightly, and add the peanut butter, mix until smooth, and cool completely.
In a medium bowl, cream together the eggs and sugar. Mix in the vanilla and mashed bananas. The mixture will be not quite smooth.
Whisk in cooled butter mixture. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. When the wet and dry ingredients are well combined, gently fold in the marshmallows.
Try adding them in 4 batches. Marshmallows seem to have a weird magnet effect and don't want to spread out from each other if you add them all at once.
Scoop the dough into 1" balls, tucking in any marshmallow pieces that seem to be coming out of the ball, to make sure they don't spread around the pan too much, press down to flatten slightly. Bake on the middle racks for 9-11 minutes, until golden, but still soft. They will start to smell like the marshmallows that kids used to burn at camp after they're cooked about half way. Don't freak out, they're not burning, they're just oozing caramel. But this also means that you'll have to be super careful about the timing. Remember, when in doubt, take them out. Underdone is always, always, always better than overdone.

Just thought I'd throw in another picture, as if you weren't tempted enough already

1 Bowl, Chewy, Caramel-ey, Nougat-ey Brownies

Brownies are probably one of the best desserts in the world. Everybody loves them, they welcome a whole plethora of add-ins, and you can stir them up with just a wooden spoon and a good helping of chocolate. I'm somewhat famous for what my friends call Milky Way brownies (My very long title provides a more appealing home made feeling, I think.) and they're the very first recipe I developed all by myself. I actually developed them as a gift for my little sister on my grade school's cross country team. Nothink like a big brick of chocolate and caramel before a run, eh? Of course, they hav been modified just a little bit since then but only on the most basic level: The quality of the melted chocolate has improved quite a bit. The old semi-sweet chips have been replaced by a decent quality dark chocolate--you don't have to use your best stuff, because there are so many other flavors going on, but I recommend at least 60%--I use 72% Valrhona dark chocolate.

Melted Butter and Chocolate. Need I say more?

They're the perfect brownie base, chewy, fudgy, and not very sweet, swirled with big chunks of Milky Way bars, and topped with salted dulce de leche (I created this recipe when I was 13. What 13 year old wants to bother with making caramel from scratch?) They're a very sentimental dessert.

Isn't this the cutest measuring spoon ever? It's a heart, and I got it as a wedding favor. So creative!

That's why I'm making them today. I went on a brownie bender for the better part of last year, and several of my friends became dangerously addicted to various combinations of chocolate, flour, butter, and sugar. This recipe, though, was always the favorite. Now, I only have a week left with these friends before we all graduate, and I realized I haven't made these brownies all year gasp! This next week is going to be almost too full of bake-worthy occasions, so I made these guys in advance (A whole week in advance) because they freeze and thaw amazingly well. Nobody will ever be able to tell that they weren't fresh made. I hope you get as much joy out of these brownies as I do, and that you share them repeatedly with your best friends and favorite family members -- hopefully all of them.

Now that I'm done getting sentimental about brownies, I do have some very serious notes on this recipe. The brownie batter itself is not very sweet. It's bitter and fragrant with coffee and vanilla. This is very important wo the recipe. There are so many super sweet additions that the brownies really do need the so if you're planning on using the caramel and candy technique with your own recipe, make sure your basic brownie recipe isn't overly sweet, and leans on the side of dark. Otherwise, you'll end up with a sickly sweet baked candy bar. Trust me. I've made this mistake more than once.
Oh, and make sure to keep a glass of milk within 3 inches of your plate (Or the pan if you're digging straight in) these are both fudgy and chewy. Dense + Chocolate = Thirsty.

Chewy, Caramel-ey, Nougat-ey Brownies
(Serves 16 if cut into 2 inch squares)

5 oz. Chopped dark chocolate
1 stick Unsalted butter
1 cup Light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 extra Large eggs (you can use regular large too)
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tsp Instant espresso or coffee
2 Tbs Sour cream or plain yogurt
1/4 tsp Salt
2 Tbs cocoa powder (Not Dutch process or the Hershey's combination stuff)
1 Cup all purpose flour
15 mini Milkey Way fun size or 24-30 minis
1/2 can Dulce de leche (cook sweetened condensed milk, covered, in a double boiler for 45-50 minutes)
1 tsp Flaked sea salt (A couple good grinds from a salt grinder will do)

For the Brownies:
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chopped chocolate and butter in 20 second bursts, stirring in between. Mix in eggs one at a time, until all combined. Stir in sugar, sour cream, coffee, vanilla, and salt. Add cocoa powder and flour and stir until completely combined. Fold in 12 of the Milky Ways (if using the larger Fun Size bars, cut them in half before adding) Pour into a prepared 8x8 inch square pan. Cut the 3 remaining bars into 8ths and sprinkle over the top of the brownies. Bake for 20 minutes.

For the Caramel Topping:
Mix half (or more) of the dulce de leche with the sea salt. After the brownies have cooked for 20 minutes, top them with blobs of the salted caramel. Return to the oven and bake for 15-20 more minutes or until the brownies have just started pulling away from the sides of the pan, but are nowhere near burned. If you're not sure, go with the 15 minute mark. They're amazingly good when they're slightly under done.