Let me tell you how I discovered these gems. A couple of months ago my brother bought me a Chocolate Stash Gift Box from Zingerman's. A "what" you ask. It is exactly what it sounds like; a stash of chocolate.
"It'll be hard to keep prying eyes and hungry hands away from this bounty. Intended for chocolate lovers everywhere, it’s the type of gift that should come with a marauders warning. You might want to encourage the recipient to open it by their lonesome or be prepared to fend off moochers."
Indeed, enough chocolate to kill someone experimenting with chocolate for the first time, but just enough to keep a chocoholic satisfied for week. One of the treasures that was in there was a Buenos Aires brownie.
"Two layers of our Black Magic Brownie sandwich a layer of Dulce de Leche, the Argentine caramel cream. Topped with a blend of cooked sugar and almonds that makes a toasty, dark caramel that we grind into a sweetly crunchy praline powder. Wow! The $64 million dollar question is 'How do they get that caramel between the layers?'"
The brownie was good enough for me to try to replicate it. I found this recipe on David Lebovitz's site and made the dulce de leche by simmering a can of condensed milk for about an hour and a half. Make sure the whole can is immersed in water otherwise you'll have a dulce de leche ceiling, floor, cabinets, etc...you get the picture.
The recipe produces a moist and dense brownie. The Buenos Aires brownie is a little lighter and drier and used almonds (I added walnuts). I would say it is a good first try, but I will have to bake a few more to replicate the Zingerman brownie.
If you do not want to bake them yourself then you can place an order for the Buenos Aires brownie using product code "a-bue".
