Heavenly Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Brownies

It was Thursday, and every Thursday I have to pick up my daughter from school and take her to dance lessons. She is always STARVING right after school because they feed her lunch very early in the day, so I have to bring her a snack. Usually I try to make it healthy, and yes, I did bring her an apple and some corned venison, but I thought brownies would be a nice treat to top it all off.

There’s more to this story: for Christmas, my kids both got Ghirardelli milk chocolates with caramel filling in their stockings. Now they love milk chocolate – and they love caramel, but for some reason, they are not so fond of the caramel filled chocolates. So my daughter and I came up with this idea to break up the caramel chocolates and put them over brownies with some pretzels. We have been meaning to do this … but didn’t have a recipe for brownies that we liked and haven’t really had time … well, you know how life goes sometimes. You get so busy with things that little projects like this get swept to the wayside.

So I found a recipe for brownies from the Southern Lady Cooks and thought it was time to try out our idea.

Heavenly Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Brownies

Adapted from the Southern Lady Cooks.

I added the chocolates before I baked them, then put the pretzels on top, but they completely melted into oblivion. I think the right way to do this is to put the pretzels on before you bake the brownies, then right after you take the brownies out of the oven, sprinkle with chopped caramel-filled chocolates (or caramel bits and chocolate chips) and a bit of sea salt. That’s my plan for next time I make these, anyway.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup dark unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 sticks butter or margarine or 12 tablespoons, melted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Broken pretzel bits
• 5 squares of Ghirardelli caramel-filled milk chocolates, chopped
• Coarse sea salt

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt. Add the eggs, butter, and vanilla. Mix well with a spoon. Pour into a sprayed 8 x 8 inch baking dish and spread out evenly. Sprinkle pretzel bits over the top. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 35 – 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Right after you take them out of the oven, sprinkle the chopped chocolates over top so that they melt onto the brownies and sprinkle with a bit of coarse sea salt. Let the brownies cool a bit before you try to cut them. Makes 9 to 12 brownies depending on size you cut them.

Part 2: the brownie saga continues …

Of course, after I made the brownies for my daughter, then my SON wanted brownies. But he didn’t want any of that caramel or pretzel stuff on HIS brownies.

So I asked my foodie friends on facebook what their favorite brownie recipe is and wow did I get a great list of brownie recipes! Here’s the list: I made the Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter for him.

• Brooke’s Best Bombshell Brownies
• Best Brownies (minus the frosting, she said)
• Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter (Leave out the walnuts, cut sugar to 1 cup.)
• Brownie Bonanza
• Triple Chocolate Brownies
• Blondies from the Wandering Chicken & Mini Farm: melt 1 stick of butter in a pan, stir in 1 cup brown sugar (here is were you would add the cocoa powder, couple T. should do good OR a bag of chocolate chips). stir in 1 egg, 1 cup flour, 1 t. vanilla, bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. do not overbake and YUM!!! sooooo easy and so yummy
• Jillian Michaels Healthy Fudge Brownies
• Baker’s Brownies
• Betty Crocker right out of the cookbook (1977 version)
• Hershey’s Brownies

Here’s a shot of the boy’s browned butter brownies. Really, I am not sure which recipe I like better … but my daughter and I really really really love the pretzels and caramel chocolates on top. I was worried the pretzels would get soggy, but they don’t! They stay nice and crunchy (for a day or two). The boy can have his plain chocolate brownies. We’ll do the pretzel thing.

This recipe was shared at Everyday Mom’s Meals and Thursday’s Treasures.