I made some salted caramel cupcakes about a year a go for a birthday party.  Since this time, my friend Mr Airport has been requesting on a pretty regular extremely consistent basis that I make them again.  His birthday was coming up, and I had been receiving some not so subtle hints that salted caarmel cupcakes should make an appearance at his birthday happy hour.  But, because I am clearly a terrible friend, I decided I didn’t want to make him cucpakes.  I had baked red velvet the day before for July 4th, and knew I was going to be creating some form of pinecapple cupacke for Mrs Roofdeck later in the week, so I wasn’t really feeling a third batch of cupcake baking.

Instead, I decided to attempt some salted caramel brownies.  There is something quite heavenly about the combination of salt and caramel, especially when paired with a deep, rich chocolate.  I didn’t want to use a ton of butter, so I made brownies using cocoa and vegetable oil.  You may think this would lead to less chocolatey, dense brownies, but they were actually just right.

The brownies did not have a very long life at Mr Airport’s birthday happy hour.  At least they brought joy to many in their short time on this earth.

For the salted caramel, I used the Brown Eyed Baker’s recipe.  In this case I halved it, although now I am wishing I hadn’t… nothing better than sneaking spoonfuls of salted caramel out of the jar when no one is looking!

Salted Caramel Brownies

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups salted caramel (see recipe above)

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with foil, and grease with vegetable oil.
• In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; gradually stir into the egg mixture until well blended.
• Spread half the batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake for about 10 minutes until it is starting to set.
• Take the brownies out of the oven and pour over the salted caramel you have already prepared
• Cover with the remaining brownies mixture, being careful to pour over the careml evenly.
• Bake for a further 15 to 20 minutes, or until the brownie begins to pull away from edges of pan. Let cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares.
• They will be extremely gooey and quite hard to slice.  It may help if you put the pan in the freezer for 20 minutes to firm them up.