Salted Caramel Brownies ♡ thick, dense, fudgy brownies stuffed with homemade salted caramel. HEAVEN.
Salted Caramel Brownies
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Great recipe! Chewy and fudgy and caramely – and very easy! I pulled them out at 25 minutes and they were perfect!
Stephanie
Okay, there are a few essential things I look for in a brownie, and I have some practice (see here and see here):
- Appropriate gooeyness
- Fudgification
- Density
- Texture
- Thickness
Imagine your most thick, dense, fudgy, rich, beautifully underbaked brownie. Now imagine it studded with soft caramel. Not like a sickly-sweet caramel. A just-right, flavor-rich, soft, silky caramel. That you made yourself, cause you’re a boss, duh. Now imagine that the sticky tops of the caramel pools on top of your brownies are not only oozing with love from the sides of the adorable Pinterest-level heart-cut-outs, but that they are also speckled with delicate, flakey sea salt. It screams for a glass of milk or a latte, complete with candles and pajamas. And by pajamas I definitely mean sweatpants and t-shirts from 10th grade softball camp. No need to make this into a whole fancy thing.
Is it even a surprise that these beauties, these love-of-my-life salted caramel brownies just straight-up have it all? They have everything. They check off everything on my list. They literally ARE everything.
They are my Valentine.
Speaking of which, do you guys even like boxes of chocolates? I might be the ultimate food snob right now, but I would easily take a batch of these brownies over a box of chocolates. Or even flowers. Just skip em, k? I’ll take the brownies.
How To Make Our Salted Caramel Brownies:
Thinking you need to make these happen for someone in your life. Go ahead and drop them the link. Aka drop yourself the link. Hint: loves salted caramel brownies, dog snuggles, and Riverdale.
This genius recipe was inspired by Smitten Kitchen, the Food Blogging Master, and her salted caramel brownies. GIRL THEY DID NOT DISAPPOINT. You must.
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Salted Caramel Brownies
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 9 big brownies 1x
Description
Salted Caramel Brownies ♡ thick, dense, fudgy brownies stuffed with homemade salted caramel. HEAVEN.
Ingredients
Scale
Yummy Homemade Caramel:
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 tablespoons salted butter
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- pinch of salt
Fudgy Thick Brownies:
- 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (one bar)
- 1 stick salted butter (8 tablespoons)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 cup flour
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat oven to 350. Line a flat plate with parchment paper and coat with cooking spray. Line an 8×8 square baking pan with parchment paper and coat with cooking spray.
- Make that caramel: place the sugar in a small saucepan over medium high heat. Stir frequently – the sugar will form clumps and eventually become smooth. Remove from heat. Add butter and stir in. Add cream and stir in. Return to heat – let it get smooth and bubbly for another few minutes. Pour the caramel on the parchment-lined plate. Freeze for 20-30 minutes to solidify.
- Brownie time: Melt the chocolate and the butter (microwave or double boiler). Whisk in the sugar. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. Whisk in the flour and salt.
- Caramel meets brownie: Cut the cooled caramel into small squares. Stir most of them into the brownie batter and transfer to the pan. Arrange the last few caramel pieces on top of the brownies. Bake for 30 minutes (more or less to taste). Cool in the fridge or freezer for easier cutting. FALL IN LOVE!
Notes
Heart Shapes: If you want to get heart shapes, you can either use a heart-shaped cookie cutter (affiliate link), or just print out a heart-shaped piece of paper and cut around it with a small knife. If you cut out heart shapes, you should be able to get 6-8 hearts with some scraps leftover. If you just cut into squares, you can easily get 9 big brownies.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: caramel brownies, valentine’s brownies, salted caramel brownies
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of easy dessert recipes. Check it out!
February 9, 2018
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
Did you make a recipe? Tag @pinchofyum on Instagram so we can find you!
These look super yummy!
Mariya
http://www.brunetteondemand.com
These look amazing. Loving your technique of freezing the caramel first. I’m usually a “swirl caramel thru the batter” kind of girl. But we all need more than one caramel brownie recipe right?! Gorgeous!
“Fudgification”.
Amen to that.
I feel like brownies are soo hard to conquer, so these look PERFECT! Also, that swirl!
Oh, yes, yes, yes! I love this combination, I will have to make this recipe very soon!
Any tips for preventing the caramels from melting and being absorbed into the batter while baking leaving empty craters. 🙁
Sorry to hear that happened, Ruta. Some sinking is inevitable, but we’d recommend making sure that the caramel is really frozen solid before adding to the batter. Perhaps extend the time in the freezer. This should help!
According to the original Smitten Kitchen recipe, that’s what freezing the caramel achieves! Prevents it from melting and getting absorbed 🙂
Oh these look so great.. delish!
I’ve been obsessively checking your blog for this recipe ever since you shared it on your Instagram Stories. It looks absolutely delicious! I’ll be making this tomorrow to share with friends who are coming over for dinner. Happy early birthday to me! (Who needs birthday cake when you have birthday brownies?)
Yum! Hope you enjoyed them!
I wouldn’t be able to stop eating these and my husband would eat himself into a coma! YUM!
Hi! What’s the oven temperature to bake the brownies?
Smitten Kitchen bakes hers at 350 degrees.
350 degrees!
Lindsay, you forgot to say that if you cut out the hearts with a knife, the “scraps” are free eating because only whole brownies/hearts have calories.
Yup, I want to get allll up in dem brownies!!! They look and sound utterly scrumptious! 😀
Love it. This looks delish and so perfect for Valentine’s Day.
Caramel, salt, and chocolate…perfection! These look delicious!
Yum!! Do you think this recipe could be doubled?
For sure! It should double just fine. 🙂
These look amazing and might just be exactly what I am looking for for our upcoming teacher appreciation Thanksgiving lunch. If I doubled your recipe, do you think this amount would then bake well in a 9×13 pan?
This look great! A question for you, why do you include nutritional information for some recipes and not others? Clearly with these brownies you might be better off not knowing but I was just curious, as it is so helpful when your recipes include the nutritional info, many other food bloggers do not, and it’s not that difficult to look up on my own but I always appreciate being saved the step of looking it up
Hi Sarah! Great question. Our POY policy is no nutrition labels on desserts. 🙂 Otherwise we try to include them on every recipe!
No nutritional labels on desserts! I’m very disappointed, the very thing that *should* have a nutritional label. There’s an obesity epidemic and everyone needs to be alert to what they are eating.
Ok, come on. You don’t need nutritional information to understand this is a treat that’s not to be consumed every day. Just scan the ingredients! There are plenty of free tools where you can plug in a recipe and get a nutritional analysis if you’re so motivated. Sheesh.
What temperature do we bake the brownies at?
In the instructions, it says to preheat the oven to 350 F.
At what point do we sprinkle on the sea salt?
We did it when it comes out of the oven!
Have enough you done this with gluten-free ingredients
Would think it would be yummy I’m gluten-free diet
Tried recipe with gluten free flour and worked deliciously!
Heavenly. I love anything caramel
This looks so good 🙂 I just want to reach into my screen and grab it.
http://simplehealthstyle.com
Chocolate and caramel….say no more! These brownies look absolutely amazing!
GIRL. I DID IT. Holy shiz balls of fire my life is changed. Goodbye forever, skinny jeans. If you need me I’ll be face first in this batch of brownies.
Haha! Glad you enjoyed it, Katy!
I just discovered your blog and am making one of your recipes almost every day! So far I’ve made the Bangkok curry noodles, the cauliflower sauce, the perfect soft cookies and the whole wheat pancakes – all absolutely wonderful! This is next I think 🙂
Awesome! Hope you enjoy it!
These look incredibly scrumptious!
I’m in, great Valentine’s Day splurge recipe, caramel and chocolate, oh my and all on a heart, love it!
Enjoy! 🙂