Sweet, Salty, Chewy, and Crunchy Brownies
I seriously have no idea what to call these things. If I listed all the ingredients in them, they’d become something along the lines of “Pretzel, Peanut, Salted Caramel Brownies”. But I kind of like describing them by the contrasting aspects of those ingredients. Hence “Sweet, Salty, Chewy, Crunchy Brownies”. My friend M preferred to just call them “Super Brownies”. Whatever you decide to call them, they’re awesome.
I whipped these up for a little gathering of friends and we could barely put a dent in them! They’re very rich and indulgent, so even though I had cut the 8×8 pan of brownies into 16 pieces, a bunch of us still prefered to share one brownie. Definitely plan to have a cup of cold milk nearby when you enjoy these.
Sweet, Salty, Chewy, and Crunchy Brownies
Yield: 16
Ingredients:
1 batch brownies (made from mix or scratch)
1 (11 ounce) bag Kraft Caramel Bits, or about 3/4 of a bag of Kraft Caramels, unwrapped
1/4 cup half & half
1/2 tsp sea salt
12 ounce bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tsp shortening
1 cup mini pretzels, slightly broken
1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Directions:
Line an 8x8 or 9x9 pan with foil all the way to the top and brush with oil. Make the brownies and cool completely.
Melt the caramels with the half and half in a large bowl in the microwave on high heat. Stir every thirty seconds until melted. Pour over cooled brownies. Sprinkle sea salt on top of caramel. Let cool until set.
Melt the chocolate and shortening in a large bowl in the microwave on high heat. Stir every thirty seconds until melted. Mix in the pretzels and peanuts. Spread over brownies. Cool and serve.
Recipe adapted from The Cooking Photographer










I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






mmm they look so super moist!
Yum! Those look really good! I’ve never tried white chocolate with pumpkin.
Wow white chocolate and pumpkin! What a delicious combination…yum!
I made those last year, and MAN OH MAN aren’t they good!
I have in the oven, a chocolate-pumpkin streusel brownie. Now, I want to make this too.
You have great recipes. Thanks.
These look delicious! And I totally do not blame you for having a couple before taking them to give away!
I love that you ate 2 while you were cutting them! 🙂 That sounds familiar!
They look wonderful!
These are the same bars I made, but I added cinnamon chips per recommendation from Maria at Two Peas in their Pod. They were great! Glad to see they turned out well for you too!
I totally agree I’m not crazy about chocolate and pumpking together. Another great flavor with pumpkin (in my opinion) is gingerbread.
I’m definitely adding this to my list of pumpkin recipes that will be baked from here until the kiddos say no more! 🙂
~ingrid
I love making bars. These look amazing. I will definety try these soon!
I made these last night to take tailgating at a college football game tonight and they are SO yummy! I used semisweet chips instead of white chocolate, but I bet they’d be good either way! I’m Really glad you warned that the mixture might look like it curdled after adding in the pumpkin, because I think it would have freaked me out and I would have thought I did something wrong!