I make - Gluten Free Brownies With Salted Caramel

I seem to be on a lucky streak with brownies lately. Two recipes I tried recently have been a big hit, both taste and texture. They are exactly what I've dreaming but had failed to reproduce until this year. There is something special in Year 2021.

Both superb brownies recipes came from Katarina Cermelj, the author behind the brilliant blog The Loopy Whisk. I wrote about her Vegan Brownies previously. I thought no other recipes could top this one but I was wrong. Then Katarina published her book in March and her salted caramel brownies was show cased by Nigella Lawson. What can I say, both Nigella and Katarina have never led me wrong so I decided to give it a go.

Wow, this one is special, a celebration worthy brownies. The taste is just wonderful, chocolaty with molasses undertone. The texture is fudgy and chewy, and with the gooey salted caramel in the middle. It's a bit more fiddly than the vegan brownies but it's perfectly manageable. Now I've gone through the process once, I am less intimated next time. 

I am glad that I and Brownies now finally became friends.

Salted-Caramel-Stuffed Brownies

BROWNIES
240 grams dark chocolate (about 70% cocoa solids), chopped
120 grams unsalted butter

½ teaspoon instant decaf coffee granules (my addition)
3 eggs (at room temperature)
210 grams soft light brown sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract (my addition)
75 grams gluten-free flour blend
30 grams Dutch processed cocoa powder
½ teaspoon xanthan gum (I skipped)
½ teaspoon salt

CARAMEL LAYER
180 grams double cream (single cream works fine and I used 125ml)
30 grams unsalted butter
80 grams golden syrup
100 grams caster sugar
¼ - ½ teaspoon salt (to taste)

METHOD

BROWNIES

Line a 20cm square baking tin with a piece of baking paper cut large enough to overhang the sides of the tin (to help you remove the baked brownies). Note: I will use a smaller tin next time to have thicker brownies.

In a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt the dark chocolate, butter and coffee granules together. Set aside to cool until warm.

Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or a hand mixer fitted with the double beaters, whisk the eggs and sugar on medium–high speed for 5–7 minutes until pale, fluffy and about tripled in volume. The mixture should briefly pile on top of itself as it falls off the whisk.

Fold in the melted chocolate.

Sift in the gluten-free flour blend, xanthan gum if using, cocoa powder and salt, and use a spatula to gently fold in until no flour clumps remain.

Pour half the brownie batter (about 400g) into the lined baking tin, smooth it out and refrigerate until needed. ➀ Set aside the other half at room temperature.

CARAMEL LAYER + ASSEMBLING THE BROWNIES

Adjust the oven shelf to the middle position and preheat the oven to 160°C.

In a saucepan, bring the double cream and 15g of the butter to the boil. Remove from the heat and set aside until needed, making sure the mixture stays warm.

In a clean saucepan, combine the golden syrup and sugar, and cook over a medium–high heat, stirring frequently, until it reaches 145°C. Remove from the heat, add the cream mixture and mix until combined, then heat again, stirring continuously, to 112–116°C. ➁ Immediately remove from the heat and stir in the salt and the remaining butter.

Stirring occasionally, cool the caramel to 80°C – at this temperature, it’s unlikely to melt the bottom brownie layer while still being pourable and spreadable. Pour this over the chilled brownie layer in the baking tin and spread it out, leaving about a 1cm border around the edges (to prevent the caramel from leaking out too much during baking).

Spoon the other half of the brownie batter over the caramel and gently spread it out to completely cover the caramel layer.

Bake for about 30–35 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out covered in half-baked batter or with a few moist crumbs attached. Note: my oven takes about 28-30 minutes.

Cool the brownies completely to room temperature before taking hold of the baking paper and removing them from the tin. Use a sharp knife to slice into portions. (Cooling first allows the crumb to set to give you neat slices with clean edges. Although these brownies, served warm from the oven, will have caramel invitingly oozing out of them, without cooling they are a nightmare to cut.)

If you want to serve the brownies warm (for example, with a scoop of ice cream), reheat them in the microwave for about 5–10 seconds to make the caramel soft again.

STORAGE:

3–4 days in a closed container at room temperature.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notes:

➀ Chilling the bottom brownie layer makes it sturdier and less likely to melt or displace as you pour the caramel on top. The other half of the brownie batter should remain runny enough at room temperature so that you can easily spread it on top of the caramel layer.

➁ Between 112 and 116°C, the caramel is in the so-called ‘softball’ stage. This is the optimal temperature range to give a caramel layer that, despite being heat-treated again during baking, is luxuriously soft even once the finished brownies have cooled completely. To test for the softball stage, drop a small amount of the caramel into a glass of cold water and then scoop it out – it should hold its shape but be very soft when squeezed. (You don’t need to do this if you’re using a sugar or digital thermometer.)