Here’s a great recipe for you to bring into the office to get extra brownie points for your end of the year bonus (haha), make for a holiday party, wrap up and give to the neighbors, bribe someone with… or just eat by yourself with a fork and gallon of milk.

It’s super easy and fun to make, but please remember that even if it looks cooled off, the dulce de leche is freaking hot.  I had a huuge blister on my pointer finger for two weeks just for being a fat kid and trying to scoop up some with my finger.  Definitely not a good idea.

• 1 stick of butter plus 1 tablespoon
• 1 cup flour plus a handful more
• 1/2 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)
• 3/4 lbs of milk chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup of dried cranberries
• 2 handfuls of crushed walnuts

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Spray Pam (or your nonstick cooking spray of choice) inside a 9in by 9in pan – completely coating it.  Drop extra handful of flour in pan and shake around until entire interior of pan is coated with flour.
• Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a medium mixing bowl.  Chop the butter up into small cubes and add to bowl.  If you have a mixer or a food processor, this next part will be easy for you.  If not – do what I did and use a pastry cutter… or a wire whisk.  Work the butter with your dry ingredients until you have the consistency of tiny pebbles and all dry ingredients are included.
• With your hands, press the shortbread dough into the bottom of the pan and bake until the edges turn a nice golden color.
• Take out of oven and let cool completely to room temperature.  I know waiting is agony, but trust me… if you don’t wait, you’ll destroy it.
• In a sauce pan on medium heat, empty out your can of condensed milk and drop in the extra tablespoon of butter.  Keep a really close eye on the milk; if it burns it will probably destroy your pan too.   Stir mixture continuously with a rubber spatula.
• Keep stirring over heat until the milk changes consistency to a soft caramel/dulce de leche texture and turns a nice hazelnut color (15 minutes or so).
• When dulce de leche is done, pour over completely cooled shortbread pan and spread it around evenly with the spatula.
• Now for the final step, set up a double boiler on your stove.  (You can set a large glass bowl on top of a smaller sauce pan with an inch or two of water.)  Pour the chocolate chips into glass bowl and check every few minutes – stirring chocolate to melt evenly.
• When chocolate is completely liquid, add your cup of dried cranberries and turn to coat.
• Spread chocolate/cranberry mixture over the top of the cooled dulce de leche layer and before it can dry, crumble your walnuts on top so that they stick to the chocolate.
• Let cool, cut and serve!

I know that the real baking purists out there will be disappointed that I didn’t make my own dough for the crust – but remember this blog is called the Gourmet Analyst – I do have a full and a half time job! Haha! But hey – if you have the time to do it all AND make your own crust – more power to you. (more pictures below)

• One tube of New Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Dough
• 2 large and ripe Bartlett pears
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 5 oz Mascarpone cheese
• 1 egg
• handful of crushed walnuts
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Stretch out Pillsbury dough onto cookie sheet, being careful to mend holes and rips if they form.
3. With a soft spatula, spread layer of Mascarpone cheese over dough sheet, getting within 3 cm of the edge.
4. With a sharp knife, slice pears into 3mm slices and gently layer them on top of each other to form two opposite facing lines lengthwise down the dough sheet. As with the Mascarpone, stay within a 3cm border.
5. Sprinkle brown sugar and crushed walnuts over the pear slices.
6. Fold the edges of the dough up and over about 1cm over onto the pears. This isn’t like a pie – so don’t worry about making it look symmetrical. Asymmetrical is sexy – as long as you’re talking about pastries, and not Los Angeles.
7. Squeeze your honey into a microwave safe bowl and add the 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Microwave the honey for 5 seconds or so to liquefy the honey. Drizzle the vanilla honey mixture over the pastry with a spoon, stopping to microwave again if the honey begins to return too quickly to it’s usual firmness.
8. Lastly, beat egg in a separate bowl and give the crust a quick egg wash.
9. Set into oven and let bake for around 20 minutes. Start checking the crust at around 15 minutes. It’s all done when the crust is a deep golden color like it is in the pictures.

I sliced it up like pizza because it was the easiest way to serve it… I think that next time I’ll make a rectangle version… and maybe two or three of them so everyone can have seconds and thirds… it was a big hit!

• One package of New Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations Dough
• 1 package of fresh raspberries
• 3-4 large spoonfuls jar mango preserves
• Handful of crushed walnuts
• 1 large egg
• 3 oz mascarpone cheese (more or less 1/3 of an 8oz container)
• Powdered sugar for presentation

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Grease a cookie sheet with
3. Open up the dough and carefully stretch out to full size. At this point I reshaped my dough into a circle to give it a more rustic feel – but the next time I make it, I want to see if it yields more as a rectangle.
4. Using a soft spatula or the back of a spoon, spread mascarpone cheese liberally over the dough, getting up to 2 cm away from the edge.
5. On top of mascarpone layer, spread another reasonably thick layer of mango preserves, still leaving the small 2 cm border around the edges.
6. Take a handful of raspberries and smoosh them up a bit in your fingers and distribute evenly over the dough. Mmmm…. smooshy.
7. Fold the edges of the dough up and over about 1cm over onto the filling. This isn’t like a pie – so don’t worry about making it look symmetrical. Uneven edges equal one shabby chic tart. Haha!
8. Sprinkle the crushed walnuts over the top of the tart.
9. Beat the egg in a bowl and using a brush, lightly coat the crust with an egg wash.
10. Set in oven and bake for around 15 minutes. Check the tart after 10 minutes just to be safe. It is fully cooked when the crust has turned a deep golden brown color.
11. Let cool and serve at room temperature with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and some fresh berries on the side.

• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of sweetened coconut flakes
• 3 tablespoons of milk (not skim if possible)
• 2 drops vanilla extract (or substitute)
• A few shaves off of a block of Gulf Wax (paraffin cooking wax) – you can find it in the baking isle of the grocery store
• Optional : 1/2 tablespoon of instant coffee/cappuccino

1. Put a small skillet on medium heat
2. Combine milk and brown sugar and stir with a soft spatula until the sugar is fully dissolved. If you are using the coffee flavor as well – add it in at this stage
3. Add in coconut flakes and vanilla extract and continue to stir as the mixture simmers
4. With a knife, shave off a few small pieces of Gulf Wax into the mixture – this will help the topping harden and have a bit of a shine when it cools.
5. Allow mixture to reduce a bit and for the mixture to begin to smell strongly of coconut.
6. Once the mixture is done – take off of the burner for around 10-15 seconds before pouring over your cake/muffins/etc.

In this picture I used small brownie cakes and topped it with this coconut mixture – super good! Very rich – make sure you have a glass of milk handy! .

• 1 box Ghirardelli Brownie Mix
• 2 Tablespoons chocolate syrup
• 1 cup Chopped walnuts
• 1 can – Betty Crocker Frosting in a Can – petal pink

I made these on the weekday so I didn’t have enough time to make them from scratch. I took a box of Ghirardelli brownie mix (not the muffin mix because I like them to be more gooey) and instead of buying the kind with walnuts already in them – I just used the regular chocolate kind. I knew the muffins would be bitesized – so to get the walnuts the size that I wanted I took a bag of chopped walnuts and mashed them up a bit more so that every bite had just the right amount of walnut. I also always add a bit of chocolate syrup to the mixture because I can never get enough chocolate!

Because they were so small I practically sat in front of the oven waiting for them to bake. After they cooled – I used this great frosting that I found from Betty Crocker in a pressurized can in “petal pink” to top them off! It would have been great to sprinkle them with powdered sugar or cocoa powder – but I finished them at 130AM and had to be up in a few hours!