Sea Salt Caramel Brownies

I am a chocaholic. Self admitted, and in need of counseling I am sure. My favorite candy of all time is ghirardelli chocolate caramel squares. So give me a dessert that promises my two favortie things and I am all about it!

I saw this recipe while surfing the net and reading some blogs and I instantly knew I needed to make them. They were on doughmesstic.net blog and they looked so delicious mouth was watering and they were incredible!

I had heard caramel was tricky to make, but was fearless and thought, "Really how hard can it be?"  Truth be told, it is tricky! My first try I let it go too long and it turned dark brown and bitter. My instincts told me to take it off and I waited another minute or less and it was too late. So follow your instincts. Come to find out, I could have used the too dark caramel for a recipe in Baking with Dorie Greenspan which calls for the dark and bitter caramel, but I threw it out before I saw it.
Anyway, back on point, these brownies were so rich and gooey and were all I hoped they would be. Honestly, they are very rich and a tiny square satisfied me.  Of course, I ate several tiny squares through the course of the day though!  The pictures are of a center piece, but the on the outside pieces, the caramel gets chewy and almost crunchy in spots which was so good!  Can you tell I liked them?  I hope you try them!



Sea Salt Caramel Brownies

Sea Salt Caramel – adapted from Baked Cookbook

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/4 cup sour cream

In a small saucepan, combine the cream and the salt.  Simmer over very low heat until the salt is dissolved. set aside.
In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and corn syrup carefully. They will not combine well until the sugar begins to melt. Cook over high heat until an instant-read thermometer reads 350 degrees, 6 to 8 minutes.  Without a thermometer, just pull the sugar off the heat when it is a medium goldish brown – it will continue to cook in the heat of the pan. Better to pull it too early than too late. Remove from the heat and let cool for one minute.
Add the cream mixture and the vanilla to the sugar mixture.  Whisk in the sour cream.  Let the caramel cool to room temp, then follow the brownie instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate any leftover caramel. it makes a great ice cream topping or tastes great straight out of the jar.
Brownies

Ingredients

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• pinch salt
• 1/4 cup Chocolate Syrup
• half of the above caramel recipe

Preheat oven to 325F.
Melt Chocolate and butter in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
In a bowl, mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and mix until well combined
Add flour, salt, chocolate syrup and chocolate mixture and blend well.

In a greased 8×8 pan, pour a little over half of the brownie batter and bake for 18 minutes.  Remove from oven and pour in the caramel.  On top of the caramel, add the rest of your brownie batter. If it doesn’t pour smoothly, just plop it in a swirl it around a little bit.  Return to oven and bake for another 18-22 minutes.  Brownies will still appear a little shaky, due to the caramel, but they will firm up once cooled. Do not overbake.