No messing about.
Given the comments, ooh’s and aah’s I’ve heard after posting this recipe on Twitter, Insta and taking a few squares of it in to the office, instead of wait until I had time to write an intro I thought it best for everyone concerned that I get the recipe up pronto.
So here it is, no messing about; sticky salted caramel chocolate brownies. If you’re after a pay rise perhaps take a few in for your boss. You can thank me later.
For the salted caramel
Make life easy for yourself (and eat the brownies faster) by using a ready made salted caramel. You’ll need a pot with contents weight of around 220g. But if you’d like to make your own there are lots of nice recipes for it online.
For the brownies
- 180g plain flour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 200g dark chocolate, around 80% cocoa solids
- 100g good quality milk chocolate
- 150g unsalted butter
- 4 free-range eggs
- 220g light muscovado sugar
- 150g caster sugar
- 1 fat vanilla pod split lengthways and seeds scraped, or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
- Preheat your oven to 190°C and line a tin around 30 x 20cm with parchment, then grease it with butter.
- In a bowl above simmering water (water not touching the bowl) melt the chocolate and butter, stir occasionally and once all melted remove from the heat.
- While that’s happening, sift the cocoa, flour and salt in to a bowl and mix together.
- In another large bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla seeds/extract, and sugar and whisk until thick and pale and slightly fluffed up.
- Add the chocolate to the egg and sugar mixture and whisk to combine again. Now add the flour and using a metal spoon fold the flour and cocoa mix in until just combined.
- Pour half of the mixture in to the baking tin and smooth until fairly flat, then take 3/4 of the salted caramel and dollop teaspoons of it over the top of the mixture — get it close to the edges but not touching (otherwise it will scorch in the oven).
- Now add the rest of the brownie mixture to the baking tin and smooth it over the top trying to conceal the caramel.
- Dollop the rest of the caramel on the top of the mixture, then using a teaspoon swirl through the brownies top to bottom to swirl the caramel on the top and in the middle through the brownie mixture. The swirling creates pools of caramel in some bites and not others, and looks great on the top of the cooked brownies.
- Make sure you leave some caramel uncovered by brownie mix from the top layer as it bubbles deliciously and looks great.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes (I prefer brownies that are a tad more set, as the salted caramel is super soft) and when a knife comes out of the middle with only a bit of moistness it’s ready — remember it will continue cooking in the residual heat a little bit.
- Remove from the oven and after 10 minutes carefully lift the brownie out in its paper and set it on a cooling rack (leaving the paper underneath still) to cool completely for 1 hour. Yes I’m afraid waiting is a very important step in getting the right texture and not getting burnt! Cut in to chunks and eat.