Full disclosure:  the following recipe includes a cake mix.  Whew.  I feel better getting that off my chest up front.

Any cook faces the need to balance time investment with quality.  This calculation isn’t foreign to professional chefs, who have dozens of tricks and shortcuts at hand every night to expedite restaurant service.  After all, when you have a team of prep cooks, making demi-glace from scratch becomes quite a bit easier!

For the home cook, though, striking that balance can be trickier.  I have yet to make fresh pasta at home, for example, because it just doesn’t seem to be worth the effort.  Have you seen Alton Brown’s homemade ravioli episode?!  It is NOT a quick technique compared to, say, buying frozen ravioli and tossing them into salted water for a few minutes.  (Our Italian readers should feel free to flay me in the comments for that…)

And that’s not the only example – I love making my own pizza dough when I have the time, but the 2-hour rise really throws a wrench into my dinner’s timing.  I also enjoy making roasted broccoli for a dinner party – it doesn’t get much simpler than olive oil, salt, pepper, and a broiler – but it’s quite a bit messier than simply steaming a crown or two for a few minutes, and there are always times when my desire to avoid a messy kitchen will win out.

I was perusing some recipes from my sister’s kitchen recently and it struck me:  I’m sure we all have a few family recipes that crop up again and again at the dinner table because they’re just so darn easy.  One set of family friends I have, for example, made spaghetti and meat sauce every Monday night for dinner.  It was a wonderful family ritual – the sauce came together quickly, boiling pasta is a snap, and then you just have to warm up some bread (sourdough rounds were a favorite in that house).  Needless to say, it was also a cheap way to feed three growing children, and in fact, the kids’ friends would often stop by for spaghetti even when the kids were all off at college! It was that popular!  To this day, making spaghetti with a red sauce brings me back to innumerable evenings over there, finishing homework and waiting for dinner.

This recipe is an example of that kind of nostalgic, quick and easy cooking for me.  It’s a dessert that pulls together easily – about 30 minutes of work for a whole pan of chocolate squares – and always makes a splash.  Sure, it’s not quite as classy as you’ll get out at a restaurant, but I’ve never failed to impress with it.  It’s an incredibly rich kind of turtle brownie, so make sure your tasters know what they’re getting in to up front.  I prefer these without nuts, but it wouldn’t hurt to top with pecans or walnuts before baking if you’re so inclined.  The recipe itself is the height of simplicity – 5 ingredients and a 9×13 pan, and you’ll be the toast of your coworkers (or you’ll be cursed by anyone on a diet…) Either way, they’ll be talking about you!

I also strongly suggest cutting these small and sharing widely.  Seriously, there’s a stick of butter in here, and while your inner Paula Deen will love it, the sugar crash can be brutal if you have too many.  I swear, though – totally worth it.

Caramel Layer Chocolate Squares (or Turtle Brownies Without Nuts, but this is a family site)

Ingredients

1 box devil’s food cake mix

2/3 cup evaporated milk, divided

1/2 cup butter, melted

14 oz package caramels (the ones that come individually wrapped)

12 oz chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Unwrap all of the caramels and place in a saucepan over low heat with 1/3 cup of the evaporated milk.  Stir until melted and smooth, then set aside.

Combine cake mix, 1/3 cup evaporated milk, and the melted butter.  Mix until uniform.  Divide the resulting dough into two parts and set one of them aside.  Press the remaining half of the dough out into a 9 x 13 pan using a spatula.  You’ll have to spread the dough fairly thin to cover the whole pan, but don’t worry – it will rise nicely as it cooks.  Also, don’t worry about greasing the pan – there’s enough butter in here to keep things non-stick.  Bake for 6 minutes, then remove from the oven.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the cooked crust.  Pour the caramel mixture over the chocolate chips, again, as evenly as possible.  Then drop crumbled pieces of the remaining dough over the caramel.  Try for even distribution, though it’s not necessary to fully cover the caramel.  They’ll look quite nice with spots peeking through.

Bake for 20 additional minutes, then allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.  I do mean completely, by the way – these bars will be almost liquid when they come out of the oven.  Allow at least an hour in a relatively cool kitchen – I usually leave them overnight and put them on a plate for my officemates the next morning.

Enjoy!

-HML

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