Brigadeiros

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Today is (yesterday was) chocolate caramel day!

So obviously my perfect intentions for staying ahead of the game this year didn’t work out as perfectly as I’d hoped. Does anyone else have this problem?

That’s okay – chocolate makes everything better, so let’s focus on that. Combine chocolate with caramel and you take “better” to a whole new level. When I saw this recipe for Brigadeiros, and saw how few ingredients they needed, I knew I had to give this a go.

You’ve never heard of Brigadeiros??? Don’t feel bad; neither had I until this pin came across my Pinterest feed by Stacy of Food Lust People Love. They are a Brazillian chocolate caramel (swoon) made from only 4 ingredients. Shall we get on with the Pintesting?

Here are the ingredients. I had everything on hand – hooray for a well stocked pantry. Not shown is the butter; 1 Tablespoon for the recipe and more to coat your hands when shaping them.

Pour the sweetened condensed milk and butter into a skillet, then sift the cocoa into the mixture.

Don’t miss this step or you’ll have clumps of cocoa! Use the back of a spoon to break up the clumps.

Heat on medium heat, stirring to combine well.

Keep stirring…

…and stirring, until the mixture is nice and thick. Stacy says 10-15 minutes; it was just over 10 minutes for me.

Pour the chocolate sprinkles into a container and grease your hands with butter while the caramel cools enough to handle. Roll spoonfuls into little balls,

and then coat them in the chocolate sprinkles.

I did several at a time; dropping them in and swirling the bowl of sprinkles.

My friend was having a birthday, and so I thought it would be fun to use these to top mini cupcakes.

To go with the chocolate and caramel candy, I did rich chocolate mocha cupcakes with a salted caramel buttercream. The cupcakes were delicious, but the Brigadeiros were the star. Everyone loved them – especially the Birthday girl.

Now for the Pintesting results.

Overall Results: 5 Pins

Accuracy: These sweets were as easy to make as Stacey’s’ blog said they would be. Her step-by-step instructions were easy to follow and the Brigadeiros turned out perfectly on the first try. 5 Pins

Difficulty: This is one of the easiest candy recipes I’ve ever made. No melting sugar, no worrying about melting chocolate seizing, and no candy thermometer needed. Once the caramel has cooled sufficiently, you could let children help with the rolling and shaping, but use caution since it does stay quite warm to the touch. 5 Pins

Time: Start to finish, this was done in 30 minutes – including the dishes! The recipe makes quite a lot, which requires quite a lot of rolling and shaping the caramels, so I thought it might take a long time. Nope! 5 Pins

Cost: Since I had everything on hand, this was free for me. Even if you had to buy everything, the four ingredients would set you back fewer than $10 and you’d have lots of leftovers. 5 Pins

Practicality: Stacy made these and served them in cute little paper cups, but don’t let that limit your creativity. I topped cupcakes with them. They’d be great to garnish a cake. You could even press them into candy molds or hand shape them into unique designs for any occasion. These are quick and easy – so much so that I’m going to be making more to bring as a class treat. 5 Pins