Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Salted Caramel Brownies



Yesterday, this recipe was posted on The Pioneer Woman. As soon as I read Ree's entry, I knew I had to make them. I love fleur de sel caramels and pretty much anything with the sweet/savory combination. My friends and I wound up deciding on having a pizza lunch at work at the last minute and bang! There's my excuse to make these brownies and bring them into the office!

A couple notes on the recipe:
  1. It says to bake the brownies 25 to 30 minutes. After 25 minutes, I pulled the pan out, and it was still wiggly. Upon wooden skewer test, the pick came out coated in raw batter. Clearly not ready, and it wound up taking about 37 minutes for me to get the brownies where I wanted them, moist crumbs clinging to the skewer, not completely clean. My oven temperature is accurate, thanks to the oven thermometer I go by. If the brownies were supposed to be liquid when I pulled them out of the oven, then I didn't notice any problems with how long I baked them because they were still chewy and fudgy in the end.
  2. I looked at the original recipe posting from Charlotte and it had 3 TBsp of gelatin required. A lot of reviewers commented that the caramel was extremely rubbery due to the huge amount of gelatin. I can see why Ree altered the recipe to just 1 TBsp + 1 tsp gelatin. Ree didn't mention putting the brownies in the fridge to set, as the other recipe said, so I popped the brownies with caramel topping into the fridge for about an hour. I tried to slice them at that point and it was a HUGE mistake. I have very sharp knives, and when I ran the knife across the brownies, it dragged chunks of brownie and strings of caramel with the blade. I gave up and put the brownies back in the fridge overnight. In the morning, it was perfect, so easy to cut. Because the flavor is so rich, I cut them into 1 inch squares, like petit fours.
These brownies taste divine. Bake them!