Unbutton your pants now, because that’s exactly how you’ll feel after this.
If you’re on a diet, you may want to step away.
If you can tolerate five minutes of delicious self-torture, read on.
Brownie Pizza: as mouth-watering and decadently indulgent as it sounds.
I prefer regular pizza in triangular slices, but dessert pizza deserves squares. It serves more people and looks better on a tray — a small win in my book.
Rarely is a dessert too sweet for me. I happily eat sweets for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can demolish thick chocolate cake and frosting so sugary it makes your teeth ache. Nothing usually fazes me.
This, however, almost did.
The brownie pizza is rich and indulgent to the extreme. “Delicious” alone doesn’t capture it.
For the creamy layer I first considered a light mix of cream cheese and whipped topping, as I did with the fruit pizza. Then I remembered a container of cream cheese frosting in the freezer from a recent batch of red velvet cupcakes.
Could I add more butter and sugar? Of course I could — and did.
I used the remaining cream cheese frosting as the first layer. If dessert sins exist, this felt like one.
Brownie Pizza
inspired/adapted from Paula Deen
Ingredients:
1 box brownie mix
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup toasted coconut
Caramel sauce, for drizzling
12 fun-sized candy bars, chopped (I used Snickers)
1–2 cups cream cheese frosting
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Prepare the brownie mix according to package directions. Spread the batter on a round pizza pan or a square baking sheet for a dessert-pizza shape. Bake about 15 minutes, or until the brownie is set and a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs. Cool completely; chilling in the refrigerator speeds this up.
Spread a thin layer of cream cheese frosting (or a lighter cream cheese-whipped topping mix) over the cooled brownie. Arrange the strawberries and banana slices, sprinkle toasted coconut and chopped candy bars, and drizzle with caramel sauce. Refrigerate at least 20 minutes before slicing to let the topping set.
I brought this to a party on Friday night. I confess I wanted to keep it all to myself, but I spared my partner and left him enough so he could still hug me the next day. I also kept a row at home because it didn’t fit the party tray just right.
On Saturday morning, while reaching for that kept row — fully intending it for breakfast — I accidentally shattered the refrigerator light bulb. Glass scattered across the tray and embedded in the frosting.
For a brief, irrational moment I considered eating it anyway, focusing on the chewy brownie and gooey frosting and ignoring the shards. Thankfully I didn’t. That felt like an omen to stop.
My pants, by the end of the weekend, were not happy. They’d had more than their share of brownie pizza.