If you read from the bottom up this month, you already know about the caramel that almost was…but wasn’t. It may not have taken the form I was hoping for, but it was still edible in quite a delicious fashion. My first instinct was (and still is, I’m workin on it) ice cream, but this household is not one which posseses an ice cream maker. My second instinct was smearing it on apple slices, which I can’t believe isn’t the first thing I thought of. Holy shnikeys is that good. My THIRD instinct was salted caramel brownies.

All the recipes I found called for store bought cubes of caramel, sunk in neat little rows in a 9″x13″ of batter. I was worried that the softer texture of my effed up caramel might cause it to just sort of ooze and disappear into the brownies if I went that method, so I decided to bake them in muffin cups instead. I chose the batter recipe for it’s method – you start off melting the butter in a pot, and everything else just gets added right to the mix! No separate bowls for wet and dry, no big mess with the stand mixer, none of that. One pot, done. I hate doing dishes almost as much as I hate putting away laundry, so it was an easy sell. I discovered too late that I was completely out of all purpose flour, and decided the best of my available options would be the whole wheat. (Two years ago if you’d told me I would be the kind of person with ten different varieties of flour in the cupboard, I would’ve laughed you right out the door.) I liberally buttered the cups, filled them about 3/4 with batter, and stuck around a tablespoon of caramel sprinkled with pink rock salt into the center of each. There were a couple that still stuck pretty good, as the caramel center worked it’s way out the bottom and adhered to the metal. But by and large, they popped right out.

1 1/2 cups (3/4 lb.) butter

3 cups sugar

5 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups all-purpose flour (whole wheat worked just fine_

1 cup unsweetened cocoa

14 ounces (40 to 50) square caramel candies such as Kraft or See’s, unwrapped (or my effed up caramel)

Preparation

1. In a 3- to 4-quart pan over medium-high heat, melt butter, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Stir in sugar, then eggs and vanilla, until blended. Stir in salt and baking powder. Add flour and cocoa and stir until batter is smooth.

3. Butter a 12- by 20-inch piece of foil. Line a 9- by 13-inch pan with foil, buttered side up, letting foil hang over pan ends. Scrape batter into pan. Evenly space caramels over batter. (this yeilded 18 muffin tin sized brownies for me – they’re admittedly pretty big for a single serving snack, but cracked open warm and served with a scoop of ice cream in the middle they’d make a pretty impressive individual dessert)

4. Bake brownies in a 325° oven just until a toothpick inserted in the center (not in a caramel) comes out clean, 55 to 60 minutes. Let cool.

5. Lift brownies with foil from pan to a counter. Peel back sides of foil. With a long, hot knife, cut between caramels into 35 squares; occasionally rinse knife in very hot water and wipe clean. (for the muffin tin method let them cool slightly, run a small sharp knife around the edges, and invert on a cooling rack)