Or I guess you could call them Fleur de Sel Caramel Brownies, in case you want to serve them at a fancy dinner party.  Everyone knows that you can get away with serving anything at a fancy dinner party if you name it something French. Francais. Whatever.

Talk about rich…these are the epitome of rich. Gooey. Salty. Sweet. Chocolate….what’s not to love?

I have been dreaming about making these brownies for weeks…but my problem was not having the right caramel recipe.  So, I tweeted, and Jenny (@icywit) hooked me up with the recipe from the Baked Cookbook.  Thanks Jenny!  Of course, being me, I have to change everything a little bit, so I just added a splash of vanilla – YUM. Everything is better with vanilla.

You could make this caramel and use it with a box mix brownie if you want (I won’t tell) but this brownie recipe is almost as easy as opening the box. If you DO decide to go box method, I would recommend using the “fudgy” version, and using all butter versus oil. I would also reduce the amount of water.  There you go. Easy, peasy.

Oh, and get the kiddos in on this one.  My Seven, as you can see, had a great time!

Sea Salt Caramel Brownies

Sea Salt Caramel – adapted from Baked Cookbook

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/4 cup sour cream

In a small saucepan, combine the cream and the salt.  Simmer over very low heat until the salt is dissolved. set aside.

In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and corn syrup carefully. They will not combine well until the sugar begins to melt. Cook over high heat until an instant-read thermometer reads 350 degrees, 6 to 8 minutes.  Without a thermometer, just pull the sugar off the heat when it is a medium goldish brown – it will continue to cook in the heat of the pan. Better to pull it too early than too late. Remove from the heat and let cool for one minute.

Add the cream mixture and the vanilla to the sugar mixture.  Whisk in the sour cream.  Let the caramel cool to room temp, then follow the brownie instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate any leftover caramel. it makes a great ice cream topping or tastes great straight out of the jar.

Brownies

Ingredients

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• pinch salt
• 3 Tbsp Chocolate Syrup
• half of the above caramel recipe

Preheat oven to 325F.

Melt Chocolate and butter in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

In a bowl, mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and mix until well combined

Add flour, salt, chocolate syrup and chocolate mixture and blend well.

In a greased 8×8 pan, pour a little over half of the brownie batter and bake for 18 minutes.  Remove from oven and pour in the caramel.  On top of the caramel, add the rest of your brownie batter. If it doesn’t pour smoothly, just plop it in a swirl it around a little bit.  Return to oven and bake for another 18-22 minutes.  Brownies will still appear a little shaky, due to the caramel, but they will firm up once cooled. Do not overbake.

Enjoy with a nice glass of milk, or better yet – ice cream!

Now, I have a question for you. I have been trying to convince my husband, Jon, to guest post here every couple of weeks with his fantastic grilling and smoked meat recipes.  Who’s interested? (Oh, and I’ll make sure to take pictures of him for the posts, because hello? He’s hot.) If 10 of you comment saying you’d like to see him on here (cooking, I mean) I think I can convince him to do it!

Thanks everyone for dropping by, and have a great week!  if you haven’t entered the KitchenAid Giveaway yet, there is still time – it ends Tuesday night at midnite! Good luck!