I kinda fell off the face of the earth the last few weeks. I needed a little time after the new year to organize myself and clean out my house. I’m excited to be back!

 Today we are talking about brownies. There’s no better way to make a blog comeback than with a Salty Caramel Brownie recipe, right? 🙂

In the last month, I have made 4 different brownie recipes, tweaking ‘this’ and adding ‘that.’ Umm…. yes, that’s a lot of brownies, I really don’t know what came over me. But now I have a great great recipe. I can’t wait to make it again. Haha! I should probably restrain myself for at least a week or two.

Can you see that layer of caramel sandwiched inside the brownie? You’re gonna want to make these too, once I tell you all about them!

Ok, so I call this the Great Brownie Experiment.
My recipe is adapted from 3 different recipes- each of which on their
own are amazing. But there was one or two elements that I wanted to try
differently for my “perfect” Salty Caramel Brownies. I incorporated Pioneer
Woman’s “Knock You Naked Brownies,” which are amazing, but instead of using a cake mix like she does, I wanted mine to be completely from scratch…. which is why my second recipe comes from my mom. The brownie portion of this recipe is her own recipe, which she has coined, “Mom’s Own Brownies.” I grew up with this recipe, and a brownie would definitely not be perfect without memories of my mom. I was also inspired by the
salty aspect from Food Beast’s “Salty Caramel Brownies,”
which are truly to die for, except that once my husband found out there
was sour cream in the caramel, he wouldn’t eat them anymore (he’s always
had a thing against white sauces, silly boy). I had to find a quick
remedy for that, because heaven knows I would eat the whole batch myself
if he didn’t help me.

I thought I would do one more little experiment with the caramel…

Candy caramels vs. caramel sauce

The verdict? Use candy caramels, they are way better! I couldn’t even taste the caramel sauce in the baked brownies, so don’t bother with it, in my opinion!

Plus… my kids loved helping unwrap the whole caramels from the entire package!

So now with the perfect caramel sauce, (no sour cream), with just the right amount of texture, choclolate and crunch, I have found my perfect Salty Caramel Brownie from Scratch. Here’s the full recipe!

Salty Caramel Brownies from Scratch

1 cup butter

2/3 cup cocoa

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 bag wrapped candy caramels (appx. 75)

3/4 cup evaporated milk

1 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 tsp sea salt

powdered sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 350.

2. Find some kids and convince them to unwrap all your caramels while you begin the brownie batter. Or in the unfortunate event you are unable to locate any children, unwrap the caramels yourself.

3. Melt butter in microwave safe bowl.

4. Add cocoa, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix.

5. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to mixture.

6. Grease a 9×13 dish.

7. Pour half the brownie batter into the dish.

8. Bake for 8 minutes.

9. Meanwhile, melt your caramel. I prefer to do this in the microwave with a glass bowl. Put the caramels in the bowl and microwave until melted, stirring every 30 seconds.

10. Stir the evaporated milk into the caramels.

11. Remove brownies from oven, and pour the caramel on top.

12. Evenly sprinkle the pecans, chocolate chips, and sea salt on top.

13. Place the remainder of the brownie batter over everything, carefully.

14. Bake 25 additional minutes, or until finished.

15. Let cool to room temperature. You also might want to refrigerate to let the caramel set up. These are super messy to eat when warm.

16. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. (To make the hearts, I just cut a heart out of parchment paper, placed it on top a brownie, and then sprinkled the sugar).

Oh yeah.