Carmel Brownies - 2011 Thanksgiving Feast Winner Dessert - 1st Place (Submitted by Rachael Cottrell)

Ingredients:
1 box German Chocolate Cake Mix
1 12 oz back semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips
1 can condensed milk
1 bag of Kraft caramels
1.5 sticks of butter/margarine

Directions:
1 - Peel caramels and put in bowl with 1/3 can of condensed milk
2 - Mix 2/3 condensed milk, melted butter and German chocolate cake mix in a separate bowl (dough will be tacky and sticky)
3 – Prep 13x9 pan with Crisco and flour, shake out excess flour
4 – Preheat oven to 350 degrees

5 – Flatten out ½ the cake mix dough and put in bottom of the pan, put in oven for 6 minutes
6 – While cake mix dough is in oven, melt caramel mixture in microwave (stir frequently so it doesn’t burn)
7 – Remove cake mix dough from oven and pour caramel mixture evenly
8 – Add a layer of chocolate chips
9 – Use remainder of cake mix dough to cover the caramel and chocolate
10 – You can add nuts at this point if you like as well (pecans or almond slivers are awesome)
11 – Bake for 15 minutes and then remove to cool . . . don’t bake them longer than the 15 minutes and don’t let them cool all the way before you try to cut them or you’ll have to saw through the caramel