These caramel brownies offer you the best of both worlds; chewy deeply chocolaty brownies and creamy homemade caramel sauce. It sure is a decadent dessert!

If you love the combination of chocolate and caramel, you’re in for a real treat!

Go-to brownie batter

This is my go-to brownie batter recipe. It’s super reliable and never fails to produce a chewy brownie with a nice crackly top. The instructions for the batter are pretty classic. This will be familiar territory if you’ve made a brownie batter before. There are 2 things to be aware of when it comes to brownie batter.

If you want the traditional crackly top, it’s essential to beat the eggs and sugar together for 5 min (preferably with a hand or stand mixer).
Secondly, it’s imperative to let the chocolate mixture cool down a bit before adding it to the batter. If the chocolate is too hot, it will scramble the eggs and your batter will be ruined.

I absolutely love caramel brownies! But I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea (they can be quite heavy). So feel free to make this recipe your own. You can skip the caramel and add chopped nuts, pieces of cookies, candies, salted pretzels. There are so many possibilities! However, keep in mind that if you don’t put caramel in the middle, bake the brownies for 5 min less.

Homemade sauce

It might seem like a hassle to make your own caramel sauce just for a batch of caramel brownies but wait ‘til you try your first bite! Shop-bought caramel sauces tend to be overly sweet whereas homemade caramel has such a depth of flavor. It really takes tender chocolate brownies to another level. A very scrumptious and rich level. Making your own caramel is seriously worth it!

Plus making a dry caramel is pretty much “hands-off” once you set the pan over low heat. All you need to do is to wait 30 min for the sugar to melt before you can stir it and add the rest of the ingredients. Don’t stray too far though, check the progression from time to time. I find dry caramel to be less temperamental than wet caramel. As long as you leave it over low heat and that you don’t stir it before it has melted, it won’t crystallize.
It’s totally normal for the caramel to harden when butter & cream are added because of the temperature differences. Keep stirring over very low heat and they’ll soon combine. If you want to make it easier on you, you can heat up the butter & cream beforehand.

Small batch baking

This is a small batch caramel brownies recipe that will serve 2 to 3 people. You only get 6 big squares, but they are so indulgent that they definitely are more than enough. I didn’t quite manage to convince my husband that chocolate desserts are delicious yet, so in my case I get the caramel brownies all to myself!

If you’re baking for more, that’s not an issue. You can easily double the recipe and bake the brownies in a 22*33cm (9*13in) pan.
Note that it’ll take longer for the sugar to melt while making caramel. Keep the pan over low heat and be patient. If you try to rush it, you might burn your caramel and then you’ll have to start again.

Fudgier

I like my brownies to have a bit of a bite, to have something to chew. These caramel brownies are just fudgy enough for me to love. I don’t care for cakey brownies (If I wanted cake I would have baked a chocolate cake) but I don’t enjoy full-on fudgy brownies either. Sure they taste great but they’re so dense and gooey that I’m simply done with them after a couple of bites. It’s just too much!

But if you want to make these caramel brownies fudgier, add 85g (½ cup) of semisweet chocolate chips into the batter, use brown sugar instead of caster/granulated sugar for a moister result and bake the caramel brownies for 30 min (not 35).

Caramel brownies

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews

Author: Amélie
Prep Time: 50 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
Yield: 6 squares 1x
Category: Dessert
Method: Oven
Cuisine: American

Print Recipe

Description

If you love fudgy brownies and creamy caramel sauce, you’re in for a real treat with these decadent caramel brownies!

Ingredients

Scale

For the caramel:

65 g caster sugar, (⅓ cup), or use granulated sugar
15 g butter (1 tbsp), diced and at room temperature
45 ml heavy cream (3 tbsp), at room temperature
⅓ tsp fine sea salt

For the brownie batter:

200 g semisweet chocolate, around 52% cocoa solids (7 oz)
115 g butter, diced (1 stick / 4 oz)
2 eggs
65 g caster sugar (⅓ cup), or use granulated sugar
⅓ tsp fine sea salt
70 g all-purpose flour (½ cup)

Instructions

For the caramel:

Melt the sugar. Place the sugar in a wide heavy-bottomed frying pan, preferably a steel pan (don’t use a non-stick pan for caramel). Shake the pan to level the sugar. Set the pan over low heat and cook without stirring until most of the sugar has melted, about 30 min. Set the heat to the lowest setting and drag any leftover patches of dry sugar into the hot caramel with a wooden spoon. After 5 to 10 min the caramel should have a dark amber color and be completely smooth. Making caramel can be tricky because it can burn quickly, so always keep an eye on your pan after the sugar has melted.
Add the rest. Add the butter, heavy cream and salt. Be careful as it might vigorously bubble. Let the caramel simmer for 3 to 5 min, stirring often to make sure everything is well combined and melted. When the caramel is smooth again, pour it into a heat-proof bowl and set aside to cool down to room temperature while you get on with the rest of the recipe.

For the brownie batter:

Melt the chocolate. Roughly chop the chocolate and place in a medium heatproof bowl with the butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (make sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water). Heat until fully melted, stirring occasionally. Then remove the bowl from the pan, set it aside and leave to cool. Butter a 13*18cm (5*7in) baking pan and line it with parchment paper. Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 180°C (355°F)*.
Make the batter. Place the eggs, sugar and salt into a separate large mixing bowl. Beat together at medium-high speed, using an electric mixer, until pale and the mixture has thickened, about 5 min. Pour in the cooled chocolate mixture and beat at low speed until combined. Sift the flour into the mixing bowl and beat at low speed until just incorporated.
Assemble. Scrape half of the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly. I weigh the batter to know exactly how much is a half, otherwise I always end up with 2 uneven layers of brownies (but you don’t have to be this accurate). Drizzle the caramel all over the batter and try to spread it as best as you can without stirring it into the batter. Scrape the other half of the batter on top of the caramel and spread it evenly so that it completely covers the caramel.
Bake. Bake for 35 min. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Set the pan over a wire rack and leave the caramel brownies to cool completely before cutting into squares. If you prefer gooey caramel brownies, bake for 25 min, let the pan cool down a bit and then place the caramel brownies in the fridge for 2h.

Notes

* 160°C (320°F) if you use a convection oven

To freeze: individually wrap the squares in cling film and then aluminum foil, then place them in a freezer bag and label (they will keep for 3 months in the freezer). Then pop out a square and leave it to defrost at room temperature for 4h when you get a craving! If you want to make a small batch of caramel brownies in advance you can freeze the whole slab! Place the pan in the freezer (after it has cooled down) and wait for the caramel brownies to harden. Remove the brownie block by lifting up the parchment paper, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil and place it in a large freezer bag.