I dreamed these brownies up in the middle of the night. I literally woke up, like a mad genius, and thought “brownies and Caramellos – who wouldn’t love that?!”

When I lived in England I took any opportunity to tell people about how great Australia was – I ADORE England and I love travelling to different countries, but I’ve inherited this goofy patriotism from my mama. Jacarandas are out at the moment and I love being reminded of how stunning a place can be. I just love Australia.

So when I get the chance to take classic recipes and put an Australian spin on it, I leap at the idea. The morning after I was awoken by caramello brownie dreams, I got to baking!

And I’m so glad that Dream Gab thought this up.

The dark chocolate brownie is kind of grown up and not too sweet, then there are bursts of oozy caramel that threaten to dribble down your chin if you’re not careful. They’re definitely the kind of treat that will temps children and adults.

Of course, Caramellos can be substituted for any other caramel-filled chocolate that you have (like Rolos or Lindt balls) but if you can get your hands on Caramellos, I highly recommend it.

Brownie

• 1 1/4 cups plain flour
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 160g milk chocolate
• 225g butter
• 270g dark chocolate
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 white sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 16 Caramello koalas

Topping

• 50g White chocolate
• Chocolate balls

Preheat your oven to 170°C and grease a 9x13inch baking tin. Set to one side.

Mix together the flour and cocoa. Add in the chocolate chunks and give them a mix to coat them in the flour mixture. In a separate bowl, put your dark chocolate and butter together then set them over a pan of simmering water, stirring until just melted. Remove from the heat when it’s nice and glossy, allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Mix in your eggs, two at a time, followed by both types of sugar and the vanilla. You may have seen the struggle I had in mixing in one of my eggs. If you didn’t, check it out, it’s good laugh for those days when nothing is going right.

Scoop  half of your mixture into the baking tin and spread evenly. Unwrap all of your Caramellos and  place them evenly along your mixture. I opted for a formation like this (I know, this photo doesn’t have all 16 in it!), but you can distribute them as you please.

Cover with the second half of the mixture and pop in to the oven for 35-40 minutes, turning at half way.

Tip: to make sure you get a nice, crisp top on your brownie, cook the brownie in the middle of the oven for the first half and move up one rung for the second half.

When you stick a skewer in the centre of the brownie it should come out with a few crumbs – nobody likes a dry brownie!

Set to one side to cool for about half an hour, then drizzle with melted white chocolate and little chocolate balls. Enjoy with a cold glass of milk.

P.s. I was recently included in a little round up of top Australian food blogs by Rebates Zone. Needless to say, I had a generous slice of this brownie to celebrate.

If you’d like to see other Australian desserts, try:

• Mini mango cupcakes
• Damper
• Anzac biscuits
• Mint slice cupcakes