Brownie magic

Though I love to bake, I rarely make cakes or brownies, figuring that it's easier to buy a mix to make them, and that I'd rather try my hand at making something from scratch instead. That's my logic. But after laboring today to make what I've been craving, I've fallen in love with these brownies, practically polishing off a third of them only a few hours after they came out of the oven.

I decided upon a brownie recipe found on epicurious, always my first go-to for online recipes. I picked a recipe from a 1993 Gourmet issue that had received high praise. As usual, I wasn't able to meet all of the recipe's requirements. It called for two sticks butter, and since I have a hard time adding that much butter to one recipe, I decided that one and a half sticks would do. And what to do with all these delicious sea salt caramels that I have on hand from Trader Joe's? If I don't bake them into something that I can share with others, I'll end up eating them all in one sitting. (As it turned out, I only used nine caramels for this recipe, leaving me with plenty of face-stuffing carameliciousness for yet a few more weeks.) I was worried that the caramels would sink if I placed them in the batter before baking it slightly, but the batter was dense enough to hold them up--they sunk somewhat midway into the baking.

And so my recipe for caramel brownies is born!

Caramel Brownies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks butter

8-10oz bittersweet chocolate

1 1/4 cup all-purpose bleached flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

2 tbsp vanilla extract

pinch salt

8-10 soft caramels

Grease or spray an 8" square baking pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. (Make sure baking rack is on the middle rung in the oven.) In a microwave-safe container, heat chocolate and butter together in the microwave until melted, about 3-4 minutes. Mix together until smooth and well-blended. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; stir til combined thoroughly. In a larger bowl, whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla until well-blended. Once the chocolate mixture has cooled to room temperature, pour slowly into egg mixture and stir until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Then add dry ingredients and stir til you have a fully mixed batter, with no flour clumps. Pour 3/4 of batter into the 8" pan. You will have extra batter which could be used for a separate, smaller, more brownie-like batch. The 8" pan will produce fluffy--yet rich--cake-sized brownies. Unwrap caramels and press gently into batter. Put brownies in oven for about 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Enjoy warm, cold, with or without ice cream!