Last night I slept for 11 hours. That’s right, people…you heard me! 11 HOURS! I NEVER sleep in. I am like an old granny who wakes up at the crack of dawn, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (yeah, I just said that)…unlike Mary who wakes up and is like the wicked witch of the west (shhh…don’t tell her I said that). Back in high school when she used to drive me to school, I wouldn’t speak one word to her during the entire car-ride. Once she warmed up, though…she was pretty darn cool, if I do say so myself. Some people just like peace and quite in the morning and prefer to keep to themselves! Are you a morning person?
Anyway…after waking up and having some breakfast, I was sitting on the couch reading “The Help” (good book, btw) when I heard Mary screaming up from the basement, “OH MY GOD, TINA COME LOOK!” I ran downstairs and sure enough…our basement was flooded!!!! This has happened before, but this time it was BAD. It seeped into my Dad’s office and all of the carpet is now ruined. Thank goodness my Mom wasn’t home because she would have (a) went completely ballistic (believe me, you do not want to see her mad…it’s a scary, scary sight) and (b) cried.
But Mary and I? We just laughed at the scene that lay before us. We got out the wet-vac and sucked up 220 gallons of water! Yes! Anyway…we called for help BUT our neighborhood was flooded too! Something was wrong with our drainage or something…but anyway the cops were not allowing anyone to come in our neighborhood! So when our help arrived, he called and told us he couldn’t get in! So much for that.
So instead of pouting around, we took out some boxes filled with our old school things in them and started going through things and found a bunch of stuff that had us laughing… here are a couple things we found:
After we laughed our butts off we decided to cook up some brownies from Bliss Blog. Not just any old brownies, though. CARAMEL SALTED BROWNIES. OH YEAH! These were honestly AMAZING. I might even be bold here for a second and say that these were the best brownies I have ever had in my life….they are my new favorite brownie for sure. They are gooey, chocolatey, fudgy, rich (but not too rich) and overall just delicious. They are DEFINITELY not cakey…so if you like cakey brownies (blah), look elsewhere. The sea salt/sugar on top adds such a contrasting (in a good way) flavor to the brownie…the salt, brownie, caramel combo is PERFECT. The caramel calls for the addition of sour cream…yes, sour cream. At first, we were thinking the same thing you are thinking right now…GROSS! But then we remembered these puppies…which had creme fraiche on top (creme fraiche is like sour cream)…so we decided to trust in this recipe and go ahead and make it! The addition of the sour cream (like the blog we found this recipe from stated) really cut down the sugary taste that most caramels have. Make these brownies!
yield | 12 large brownies
Ingredients
For the caramel filling:
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon Fleur de Sel
- 1/4 cup sour cream
For the brownie
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
- 11 ounces quality chocolate (60 to 72% Cocoa), coarsely chopped
- 1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 5 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions
- For the caramel filling, combine the sugar and corn syrup with 1/4 cup of water in a medium saucepan, stirring carefully so as not to splash the sides of the pan. Cook over high heat until an instant-read thermometer reads 350F or until the mixture is dark amber in color, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat, and slowly add the cream, and then the Fleur de Sel. Whisk in the sour cream and set aside to cool.
- For the brownie, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Butter the sides and bottom of a glass or light colored metal 9 x 13 inch pan. Line the bottom with a sheet of parchment paper, and butter the parchment.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa powder.
- Place the chocolate and butter in the bowl of the double boiler set over a pan of simmering water, and stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and combined. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water of the double boiler, and add both sugars. Whisk until completely combined and remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be at room temperature at this point.
- Add three eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the remaining two eggs and whisk until just combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage, or your brownies will be cakey.
- Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate. Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until there is a just a trace amount of the flour mixture visible.
- To assemble the brownie, pour half of the brownie mixture into the pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Drizzle about 3/4 cup of the caramel sauce over the brownie layer in a zigzag pattern, taking care to make sure the caramel does not come in contact with the edges of the pan or it will burn. Use your offset spatula to spread the caramel evenly across the brownie layer. In heaping spoonfuls, scoop the rest of the brownie batter over the caramel layer. Smooth the brownie batter gently to cover the caramel layer.
- Bake the brownies for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, and check to make sure the brownies are completely done by sticking a toothpick into the center of the pan. The brownies are done when the toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs.
- Remove the brownies from the oven and sprinkle with an extra 1 1/2 teaspoons Fleur de Sel and 1 teaspoon coarse sugar.
- Cool the brownies completely before cutting and serving. Store wrapped tightly in plastic wrap for up to 4 days.
What is more perfect than baking brownies with your sister on a rainy Sunday? So delicious, so comforting, so delectable! haha but in all seriousness, it was a perfect way to spend the day…baking, shoving my face with brownies, and looking at old things from when I was a little kid….oh and vacumming 220 gallons of water up in the basement…but let’s just not talk about that. Life is too short to care about silly things like this! I better get out of this house before my Mom comes home… I don’t want to be here to see her reaction to this. That’s right mom…I’m outta here!!!
How did you spend your weekend? Did you have a rainy Sunday where you live, too? If so, what did you do?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Omg. I have to make these brownies! I had a salted caramel truffle tonight for dessert. Yum!! We had friends visiting this weekend. Pizza, beer, and more beer. That was our weekend. Lol.
And my dad can get pretty worked up. There was an incident with a Christmas tree years ago that had my two brothers and me leaving the house to play tennis for a few hours. We basically abandoned our mom to deal with it. Lol. It’s really funny now… not so much then.
Sorry about the flooded basement! I’m a morning person, I’m most productive at that time and I like to work out then, but I really don’t like to talk to people until I’ve worked out and had breakfast. I’m usually not in a bad mood, but I’m just easily bothered I guess haha
way to reach for the stars lol cash register worker lmao
LOLz dyiiiiiing
Soryr about the mess but looks like you ladies made the best of it. the writing was sooo cute. i love it! and the brownies look amazing, as always!
{ 2 trackbacks }