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There are so many reasons to love these brownies: They’re stuffed with Oreos. They’re like Thin Mints in fudgy dessert form. They’re topped with googly candy eyes. They’re delightfully kitschy and absurd. And you can’t fail at making them.
To be honest, these Swamp Thing Brownies happened serendipitously. I had a package of mint Oreos, and they were too dangerous to keep around, just sitting on my shelf, tempting me. I needed to turn them into a dessert I could share with the masses. And I also happened to have a pack of candy eyes lying around.
I started brainstorming what I could do with them, and naturally, I thought of one of my favorite twists on the cookie: stuffed in brownies. It seemed natural. Given the green creme filling and the candy eyes — and the fact that it’s late October — a monster-y riff seemed all too necessary. Mandatory, even.
I went with Alice Medrich’s cocoa brownies recipe, modifying it ever so slightly to be even less sweet. It’s dense and fudgy, but on the more semisweet end of the spectrum, so it balances out the intense sweetness of the Oreo cookies. You can easily use boxed-mix brownie batter though. No judgment here.
Feel free to experiment a little with the toppings, too. I went with black sanding sugar, semisweet chocolate chips, candy eyes and crumbled mint Oreos, but modify things as you see fit. There are no rules here, as long as it tastes good — and looks mildly creepy.
Ingredients
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick plus 2 tbsp)
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cold eggs
- 2/3 c flour
- 16 mint Oreo cookies, plus 3 crumbled cookies (less than 1 pkg)
- 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 package candy eyes
- black sanding sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. Once melted, add sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract and salt, stirring to combine. Remove from heat once combined and glossy. Crack each egg and add one at a time, beating to combine.
- Add flour, stirring in just until combined, about 35-40 strokes.
- Pour half of the batter into a greased, 8″x8″ pan. Top with a layer of Oreos, then cover with remaining brownie batter. Top batter with crumbled Oreos, semisweet chocolate chips and candy eyes.
- Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean. Sprinkle with black sanding sugar. Let cool before serving.
