Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate Brownies are made with a Ghirardelli a product called Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa. The chocolate and cocoa mixture comes in a gold canister and is mainly used for drinking, but it does work well in certain baked goods, including these brownies.
Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate Add-Ins
I've made these several times with and without add-ins. For this batch, I used caramel candies (Nestle Treasures and Ghirardelli Caramel Squares). At the time I liked the caramel candy buried in the brownies, but now I prefer these with the candy on top. For instance, you can bake as directed, then as soon as you pull them from the oven lay Ghirardelli Caramel Squares over the top and let them melt onto the brownies. The other way to do it is to add the glaze, then chop up the caramel candies and sprinkle them over the top.
Brownies with Caramel Inside
If you are not completely committed to using the sweet ground chocolate, here's a link to my favorite Caramel Filled Brownies. They're made with regular unsweetened chocolate and melted Kraft caramels.
Recipe
Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup 4 oz unsalted butter, melted
- 1 ¼ cup Ghirardelli sweet ground chocolate and cocoa
- ⅔ cup all purpose flour
- ¼ tsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 16 Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Caramel Squares (optional)
- ½ cup Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 inch square pan with parchment and grease bottom only. Alternatively, you can just use foil.
- Whisk together eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add melted butter.
- Stir ground chocolate with flour, baking powder and salt and stir into egg mixture. Spread evenly in the pan.
- Bake 20-30 minutes. Optional: As soon as you pull the brownies from the pan, lay caramel squares on top and let them melt in slightly. Let cool. Cut into 9 squares.
- Optional melted chocolate garnish: Place the chips in a heavy duty freezer bag (must be a freezer bag!). Microwave on high for 30 seconds. Massage bags to melt chips. Repeat until chips are melted. If your microwave has multiple levels, microwave for 1 minute on 60% power and massage bag at 1 minute intervals. Snip off a tiny bit from the bottom corner of the bag and drizzle over brownies.
Anna says
Renee, we do have the squares. For some reason, every store I went to was out of the DARK chocolate caramel squares. They had all other flavores, including milk chocolate caramel, but not DARK.
Reneé says
I find Ghirardelli chocolate at Cost Plus World Market all the time... I'm pretty sure y'all have those in Austin too, right?
Natalie says
Wow...those look amazing!! My mid afternoon chocolate craving is kicking in early.
Another Valerie says
I made these a while ago (my fiance knows me oh so well and bought me the Ghiradelli cookbook) and I also added some chopped up samoas to the batter and made a caramel-chocolate truffle icing and topped that with toasted coconut. So, like you, I pretty much changed everything 😉
Anna says
Well, in this case, that is NOT a typo :).
It's 1 1/4 cup cocoa. This recipe calls for Ghirardelli's sweetened cocoa, so the cocoa isn't as powerful because it's partially sugar.
Nat says
Is that really 1 1/4 cups of choc/cocoa or is it meant to be 1/4c?
They look awesomely yummy!!
Jennifer says
Yum! Looks delicious!
cindy says
I've bought the dark chocolate caramel squares before in the checkout lane of Target.
VeggieGirl says
Oh my goodness, the shot of the inside of the brownie is total food-porn!!
Michelle W. in Calif. says
Those sound good! I'm pretty sure I've got some of those squares in cold storage from our last trip to Ghirardelli in SF! (we go to their 'chocolate festival' every year in Sept. and I stock up!) I may try these. Although I still need to make the golden syrup brownies, now that my syrup arrived! (but my household--inc. me---has been ravaged by stomach flu this weekend, so no baking went on!)
Emiline says
These look really decadent and delicious!
Heather D says
I have seen a similar recipe to this, but you use the dark chocolate mint Ghirardelli chocolate squars & you put them on top of the brownies when you take them out of the oven while they are still hot, wait for then to start melting & then swirl them around with a toothpick. I bet brownies topped or mixed with any Ghiridelli chocolate squares would be mmm-mmm good.