Curious Utterance

Créme Bruleé Brownies

Prep Time: 40 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes Yield: 15 servings

Ingredients

Brownies:

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, melted

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 TBS vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups flour

12 oz (ish) jar hot fudge sauce

Créme Bruleé Topping:

¼ cup cornstarch

1 cup white sugar

6 Tablespoons butter, melted

3 ¼ cups half and half cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

¼ cup granulated sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9x13 pan with foil and spray thoroughly with nonstick spray; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the cocoa and melted butter. Stir in sugar until combined. Stir in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Stir in vanilla. Fold in flour JUST until you no longer see flour streaks in the batter. Gently fold in hot fudge sauce.

Spread batter in prepared pan and bake for about 20 minutes, until raw batter no longer appears when a toothpick is inserted in the center. Remove from oven and place pan on a cooling rack.

Prepare topping: In a medium-sized heavy saucepan, whisk together cornstarch and sugar. Whisk in the melted butter and half and half. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is the consistency of a thick pudding. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pour custard over the brownies, spreading to cover. Sprinkle surface with granulated sugar, then place under the broiler for several minutes until top is golden (may be dark brown is some spots). Alternately, a kitchen torch can be used.

Let brownies cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled. Remove foil, cut into bars and serve.

hello friends! more info about hydroids below!

that photo is one i took of a blue button at the beach the other day. blue buttons look like individual creatures or jellyfish, but in fact, each "one" is actually a colony of little tiny animals called hydroids and they work together. here are a couple facts that i based this poem off of:

-> hydroids live connected to each other to form colonies that we see as blue buttons

-> blue buttons are completely at the mercy of the tide and have no way of controlling the direction they move in, they just float atop the sea

-> hydroids have super varied lifespans, some live only for a few hours while others live for months. blue buttons themselves have been observed to live for several years in the wild

and as a bonus, falling down this rabbit hole led me to learn about soft fossilization. as i wrote the last stanza i wasn't actually sure if creatures this soft could fossilize, but i found that even jellyfish can fossilize through soft fossilization! it's pretty cool.