Salted Caramel Brownies

A few weeks ago I went to MOMS Organic Market. It's a great little shop we have close by that has a pretty decent selection of organic products (and the customer service is great!).  They have a small bakery section, and I ended up picking up  a salted caramel brownie for a treat! The brownie came from BT Baking, and was just enough to feed both hubby and I (although, later I regretted not getting two brownies!)

Ever since I had that yummy brownie, it seems as though they have been popping up all over food blogs and Pinterest! I decided I HAD to make some soon! (And by soon, I mean, in the middle of trying to clean the house, get dinner ready, and keep my boy occupied!!)  So of course, I cheated a bit, and ended up using a box brownie mix and also instead of making a salted caramel sauce (or fleur de sel), I opted in using Trader Joe's version- I had heard GREAT things about it and I have to agree, some things are just easier to buy than to stand fussing over the stove! Hey, when you're chasing around a 14 month old who gets into everything, why not take any help you can get in the baking department!! And on a total side note, in the process of me making this super easy version of salted brownies, my little one decided to get into the the spice cabinet and proceeded to dump out an ENTIRE container of smoked pepper all over our kitchen floor!

Anyways, I'm sure that any brownie recipe would work for these so if you have a favorite and don't like box mixes, I say go for it! I ended up tossing in about a half cup of mini chocolate chips into the batter as well- hey, why not go all out and make it as rich and decadent as possible! Once the batter was all mixed, I dropped tablespoon-fuls of the caramel sauce on top of the batter (probably about 8 or so tablespoons), then ran a knife through the batter to create the swirls (next time I'm thinking it wouldn't hurt to add some caramel into the batter itself as well!) When it came out of the oven it was gooey and crisp on some of the edges and ohhhh soooo warm and yummy!! (Why I didn't have any French vanilla ice cream on hand is beyond me!)

Sometimes it's totally ok to use a box mix and premade sauce to get what you want! Noone's going to judge!

The brownies are ready to go into the oven!

If you like more of the sweet/salty combo, you can top some of the brownie with sea salt as well!