Slutty Brownies, Anyone?

I read about something called Slutty Brownies a couple of weeks ago on The Frisky and I had to do a double-take. (And then I had to text my grandma, but that's a whole other story.) Seriously? Slutty brownies? Color me intrigued.

Why are they called slutty brownies you ask? The oldest recipe I can find (which I assume is the original) says it's because "they're oh so easy, and more than a little bit filthy." Duncan Hines' website describes them as a "gooey brownie-cookie hybrid that is a little bit dirty, but oh-so-sinful" and I won't repeat what Jessica Simpson's answer was, although it did crack me up.

However it got it's name, what we're talking about here is a layer of cookie dough topped with Oreos, smothered with brownie batter, and baked up into something insanely delicious. With vanilla ice cream? I don't even have words. I guess that's what pictures are for.

Slutty Brownies

Makes 24 brownies

Ingredients

Cookie layer

• 10 oz unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1/2 c butter, room temp
• 1 T vanilla
• 2 t espresso powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 large eggs
• 5 oz dark and semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
• 2 T cocoa powder (for All the Way Slutty Brownies)

1 package Double Stuf Oreos (you'll need the whole package)

Brownie layer (adapted from Ina Garten's Outrageous Brownies recipe)

• 2 sticks (1/2 lb) unsalted butter
• 8 oz semi-sweet chocolate, plus 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, divided
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 3 extra-large eggs
• 4 t instant espresso powder
• 1 T pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/8 c sugar
• 3/4 c all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt

Directions

1. Butter a 9"x13" baking dish and set aside.
2. To make cookies, add flour, baking powder, baking soda and espresso powder into a large bowl. Whisk to combine.
3. In a separate bowl blend together butter, both sugars, vanilla and salt.
4. Add in the eggs and beat thoroughly.
5. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips. Optional: form into a disc and refrigerate for 12 hours or just move on from here.
7. Press the cookie dough into the bottom of the prepared pan and set aside. Try to get it as even as you can but don't stress about it being perfect.
8. Top the cookie dough with as many Oreos as you can, or as many as you have left. Set it aside. Again. Sigh.
9. To make the brownies, use a double boiler or (carefully) a glass bowl and a microwave to melt together the butter, 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate. Set it aside to cool until it's just warm.
10. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
11. Stir together the eggs, espresso powder, vanilla, and sugar.
12. Whisking continuously, pour in a bit of the melted chocolate mixture (if it's too hot, you'll get a scrambled egg concoction so use common sense). Once the egg mixture is tempered, you can pour in the rest of the chocolate and let it cool to room temp.
13. In a separate bowl sift together the flour (all of it), baking powder and salt. Stir it into the chocolate mixture.
14. Fold in the remaining 9 oz chocolate and pour over the Oreos.
15. Bake for 35-40 minutes (but do NOT burn them). You can let the brownies cool to room temp for easier slicing or cut out a piece while it's still warm and gooey. Pair it with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and prepare to be amazed.

Note: I cut this recipe into 24 pieces since they are so thick and incredibly rich; a little went a long way for me.

We ate a few too many of the cookies before I got around to making the brownies. Oops!

Hmmmm, I guess that'll have to work.

If you look closely you can see my new little helper.

Can you tell the brownie batter also has chocolate chips in it?

I was worried about the chocolate chip cookie:Oreo:brownie ratio, especially when it came out of the oven looking like this. Does it look like the brownie has completely taken over or is it just me?

Once I taste-tested it (a few times) it actually seemed like it was a pretty good proportion. I think the Double-Stuf Oreos were key to pulling off the correct balance here.

The Duncan Hines recipe says to bake for 30 minutes (they also say to use an 8x8 dish, so what do they know?), so that's what I did, but the brownie part seemed not quite done. It was sort of fudgy and fell apart easily, which isn't how these brownies usually come out. Maybe it's supposed to be this way? Hey, it's possible. It's also possible that I should have baked it another 5-10 minutes or let it cool completely before I cut into it, but I didn't.

Instead I made 2 more batches--one with a chocolate chocolate chip cookie base that I call All the Way Slutty Brownies (because they're chocolate All the Way through, of course!).

Talk about an explosion of chocolate. The regular cookie base in the original version provides a nice contrast to all the chocolate in the rest of the brownie, and Jake actually preferred those, but there is something to be said for the all-chocolate goodness of the triple chocolate iteration.

I had a bit of leftover brownie batter so I filled a couple of muffin cups, and the muffin cup brownies gave me an idea. What if I measured out a bit of cookie dough, pressed it into the bottom of a regular-sized muffin cup, topped it with an Oreo and then poured in a little brownie batter? I'd have individual Slutty Brownies, perfectly portioned, no cutting required. Next time I'll test it out, but after 3 batches I already had so many brownies I didn't know what to do with them.

So what did I do with them? I enjoyed the heck out of them. And shared. Just not with her:


Our new Coton de Tuléar puppy, CeCe.