baked sunday mornings: sweet & salty brownies

sweet & salty brownies.

Good?  Heck no!  A-MAZ-ING.  Incredible.  Ridiculous.  Gooey.  Delicious.  All of those things rolled into one.

These brownies are the original reason I purchased the book baked explorations.  Picture it:  I noticed a tweet – clicked on the link, saw the recipe, clicked onto my amazon.ca account and voilà – book in hand by the end of the week.

This recipe alone would make purchasing the book worth it (however … this book isn’t a one trick wonder – I am lovin’ a plethora of other recipes too).  Participating in baked sunday mornings was a nice bonus.

Seattle Pastry Girl started a blog – every second Sunday, those of us who want to, are invited to blog about a recipe (there is a set schedule for us) found in Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito’s book baked explorations.  Being the fan that I am (buttermilk pie anyone?) – I decided to participate.

That is how I ended up here – telling you about my experiences baking sweet & salty brownies.

Step one of the processes – make caramel (the filling).  It took me two tries.  Yes.  I seem to still be having difficulty figuring out the difference between dark amber and burnt (even using a candy thermometer I can’t seem to get it right).  But at least it only took me two tries – you can imagine my excitement when it worked out (dancing around my kitchen and murmurers of, “this is awesome” were the order of the day).

Salty caramel – check!

You might be wondering where the recipe is?  Don’t worry  – you didn’t miss anything.  One of the rules is that we don’t post the actual recipe.  I have however, included a pretty basic step-by-step photo gallery of what I did.  Click here for the actual recipe.

While that was cooling, I started working on the brownie batter – my strongest recommendation for this part – is to use eggs at room temperature.  You’ll be whisking them into a warm batter, and so to prevent curdling, ensure your eggs are tempered.

Otherwise … this is a totally uncomplicated recipe.  I used SALTED butter to increase the saltiness of the finished product (I’m a firm believer in the use of salted butter in baking).

Picture it.  Layer of brownie, layer of caramel, layer of brownie.  The gooey factor is pretty intense.

I pulled them out of the oven, allowed them to cool completely and then … froze them.  Yep.  I tried cutting them, but they were so moist that it was next to impossible without creating an absolute mess.  So I froze them overnight and then was able to easily cut them.

Having happily nibbled on the trimmings (remember … I always trim the sides off my brownies and squares), I realized that these are probably the most intense brownies I’ve ever tasted: and so I chose to cut 1-inch squares.  70 squares to be exact.  Awesome.

Perfect for sharing … if you feel like it.

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