Triple Layer Brownies

The important thing to know about me before you read any further is that I have a terrible weakness for making pretty sweets. I love the process of finding recipes, I love imagining how they will taste, I love watching them take shape and I love photographing them. (Un)fortunately I don't really enjoy eating them all that much. As such I try to limit myself to making them only for parties or on special occasions few and far between (otherwise my house would be overrun with untouched, cookies, cakes, pies and cupcakes).

A few days ago, I finally gave in. I had been watching our horde of cookies slowly dwindle away into nothingness and as soon I saw there were only two cookies left, I grabbed my recipes, the internet and started looking for what to replace them with.

What I eventually found were two brownie recipes: Butterscotch-Coconut brownies and Blondie and Chocolate Marbled brownies. After some time of deliberation and a quick twitter straw poll, I decided not to make one or the other, but instead both... combined.

It was not as simple making both batters and throwing them into an 8x8 pan; they were different recipes so there would be need to be some acclimating. First of all, each brownie recipes were designed to stand alone, one filling the pan, let alone both. As such I needed to reduce the recipes' size. Unfortunately, where one was a recipe for an 8x8 batch of brownies, the other was for a 13x9 pan. This meant that I had to do a little more math than I originally intended.

After few quick calculations, I ended up with some rather odd fractions (such as 2/9 cup). To remedy this, I smudged a few numbers, cut and pasted, and came up with this as the final recipe.

Triple Layer Brownies
Butterscotch Coconut Mixture (set 1)
1/8 cup (25g) butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 egg (whisk an egg and then split into two bowls, use one)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/8 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup shredded coconut
--
Blondie Mixture (set 2)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 egg
2/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/6 cup nuts
--
To make the Chocolate Mixture (set 3)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
4 tsp cocoa

Preheat the oven to 350°F (luckily this was the same for both recipes). Butter and flour an 8x8 pan.

1. Melt butter in a medium, heavy saucepan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together oil and light brown sugar. Then add the whole egg and beat until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour baking powder and salt (from set 2) and then add them to the brown sugar mixture. Mix well.
4. At this point divide this mixture into two bowls (you can use the 'dry ingredients' bowl as your second bowl to save clean up) and set to aside.
5. Stir brown sugar (from set 1) into the saucepan until incorporated.
6. Cool slightly.
7. Beat in vanilla and the half an egg.
8. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt (from set 1) into the pan and stir to combine
9. Fold in coconut.
10. Spread the mixture on the bottom of the prepared pan.
11. Into one of the two bowls you have (from before) add the chopped nuts (I used honey roasted macadamia but any will do) and stir well.
12. Spread this mixture on the first layer in the pan
13. Into the other bowl add the cocoa powder and chocolate chips.
14. Spread this layer on top of the first two.
15. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the centre comes out clean.

NOTES:

• The batter for all three of the layers was very thick (don't worry) and I would suggest spreading it with a knife, not a spatula.
• It might be aethetically more pleasing to put the chocolate layer in the centre of the brownie instead of on the top. It would also then be easier to tell when the layer is fully spread out as both the blondie layer and the butterscotch layer are the same colour.
• The brownies stuck to the plan (very sticky) so make sure that the pan is really buttered.