Making Vosges Caramel Toffee Chocolate Brownie Cupcake mix. Not the easiest in the world, but so mouth-wateringly delicious. The mix is to make brownies but we are all cupcake gals here, so I decided to bake them as cupcakes. And they were stellar!
There's a lot of "stuff" necessary to make these. Cupcake pans and baking cups, three large eggs, 1 and a half sticks of butter (soo decadent!), 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (Nielsen Massey was recommended but I used Rodelle's Bourbon Pure Vanilla). Plus all that was included in the box:
First you have to melt the butter in a wide-bottomed saute pan over low heat (well, first after you preheat your oven to 350 degrees!):
Then add the enclosed packet of sugar:
Then cook over medium heat stirring with a wooden spoon for 5 minutes.
It looked grainy to me:
The transfer that to a bowl to cool for 10 minutes.
If you look you can see not all the butter was incorporated. Not sure if that mattered or not. Things were staring to smell so good in Stacie's Test Kitchen! Working in the smallest NYC apartment kitchen imaginable is not easy for but these cupcakes I was willing to pile things on top of refrigerators, my shoe boxes, bookshelves, etc.
After cooling time was up, I added the three eggs, one at a time, stirring well between each one. Then the vanilla. Mmm, vanilla...
Then the recipe called for adding both bags of chocolate to the mix. One is a bag of what appears to be cocoa and one is a bag of chocolate chips or chunks. As usual, the recipe warned against over-mixing, so I was careful.
I popped them into the cupcake tins and baked them in the lowest rack space in my oven. Temperature and timing is crucial here. I baked for about 12 to 15 minutes (NB: not the 20 to 25 minutes the recipe recommends!), then withdrew them to add the caramel toffee pieces (included in the mix).
and with the toffee added:
I popped them back in the oven for another 8 to 10 minutes or so and they were done and delicious-looking. This deviated slightly from the recipe, as cupcakes cook faster than a tray of brownies.
Having to wait until they were cool (40 minutes?! Are you kidding? I'll give you 15 tops!) was the hardest part. (Humming in my best Tom Petty, Waiting was the hardest part...)
The glazed icing created by the toffee was a perfect accompaniment to the dark and rich adult cupcake. So darn good. The recipe says to store up to two days but all mine were gone before the night was over.
There's a video at Vosges that goes over some of this if you wanted to make brownies, but who would choose brownies when you can have this?
Mmm...rich and chewy but not too fudge-y. Dark chocolate (with some chunks) plus a hint of sea salt (y'all know I love salt in my desserts) and the perfect toffee glaze just melting and oozing all over the top.
You can see the whole set of images here; all by Stacie Joy/CTTC.
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