Brownie Doctor: Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie Brownies

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What's your favorite Thanksgiving or holiday dessert? You have a lot of pies to pick from: Pumpkin, Pecan, Apple... Personally, I'm not actually a huge fan of pie. Especially fruit pies, blegh. No thank you, I appreciate the offer but politely decline. Hot fruit just doesn't do much for me. But I'm all about the pie remix! Pumpkin Pie blizzards, Apple Pie froyo (it's a thing), and of course, today's feature: Pecan Pie Brownies.

Side note: How do you pronounce 'pecan'? Pee-CAN? PEE-can? Pick-ahn? There are so many variations that I get always confused and just end up alternating between all of them.

No matter how you say it, these brownies are delicious. That's dee-lish-us.

Have you ever made pecan pie before? I hadn't, until now. For some reason I expected it to be complicated to make. It's not! It's actually really, really easy. In fact, you can make this entire recipe without touching your mixer. All you need is some good old fashioned elbow grease.

That should be good news for those of you who will be spending Thanksgiving slaving away in a kitchen increasingly terrorized by an ever-growing mess. This recipe requires one less thing to clean your mixer for. You can stir the whole thing up in a matter of minutes, pop it in the oven, and forget about it until the timer goes off. (Just don't forget to set the timer!) That's a load off, because you have other, needier dishes demanding your attention. Turkey. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes (talk about elbow grease).

I have even better news for you: These brownies may be a breeze to make, but they taste straight up gourmet. Your guests will think they are eating the product of extensive labor and rarefied skill. They will think you are a master chef, a culinary magician. Little do they know...

This recipe was bound to be fool-proof. I started with Ghiradelli's dark chocolate brownie mix. Mmmm.... chewy dark chocolate studded with chocolate chips. Yes, PLEASE and thank you very much. The recipe I used for the pecan pie layer comes from the geniuses that brought you the Baked Brownie. I don't know if we've posted about this brownie before, but it is our go-to from-scratch brownie recipe. I don't say this about a lot of things, because I firmly believe that homemade baked goods are superior to store-bought in 95% of cases. But as a rule, I will admit that boxed brownies turn out better than homemade, which too often turn out cakey or crumbly or just not chocolatey enough. The Baked Brownie is the exception to that rule. Baked Brownies are the paradigm of brownie goodness. Rich, fudgy, densely chocolatey goodness. Everything you could want from a brownie and more.

But I digress. (Sorry. Brownies are distracting.) All this is to say: These guys know what they're doing. Admittedly I haven't tried a lot of pecan pie recipes, but I'd venture to say that this one stands apart.

I'm not even a big fan of pecan pie, but I was all over these brownies. They are bomb. And if you don't believe me, believe the evidence: I set some out in my dorm's common room in the afternoon, and between just seven girls they were gone before bedtime.

- Molly

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Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie Brownies

Pecan pie filling adapted from Baked

1 brownie mix
2 cups chopped pecan halves
3 large eggs
3/4 cup light corn syrup
3 tbs sugar
4 tbs firmly packed dark brown sugar
3 tbs unsalted butter, melted and cooled
pinch of salt
1 teas vanilla
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Chop 3/4 cup of the toasted pecans and set aside. Melt butter and set aside to cool. Prepare brownie batter according to box instructions and pour into a 9x13 pan.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk the eggs until combined. Add the corn syrup, sugars, butter, salt, vanilla, and bourbon. Whisk again until combined. Stir in the chopped pecans.

Spread the chocolate evenly over the brownie batter. Slowly pour the filling into the pie. Arrange the remaining 1 1/4 cups pecan halves over the top of the filling.

Bake in the center of the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Carefully cover the edges of the pie with aluminum foil and continue to bake for another 30 minutes. Test the pie with knife in the center. If it comes out clean the pie is done. If it has clumps, bake for another 5 minutes.