Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies
I may have misled you guys the other day when I was talking about that Salted Caramel Sauce. Sure, I gave away most of it as gifts. And sure, Hubby enjoyed it on top of ice cream. But one of the real reasons I wanted to make it was so that I could make these Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies.
If you like turtles, you’ll love these brownies. I made these while my mom was visiting since she loves turtles. I whipped them up in no time and then we had to wait the brutal couple of hours for them to chill and set up. We all really enjoyed these brownies. They were very decadent without over-doing it.
One Year Ago: Chocolate Hazelnut Baklava
Two Years Ago: Two Potato Chowder
Three Years Ago: Smashed Chickpea Salad
Four Years Ago: Lemon Cupcakes
Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies
If you like turtles, you'll love these salted caramel pecan brownies!
Yield: 24 brownies
Ingredients:
3/4 cup pecans
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup caramel sauce
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place the pecans on a single layer on a baking sheet and bake until toasted, about 7 minutes. Coarsely chop and set aside.
Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with foil, leaving several inches overhang on the sides. Grease the foil with butter or cooking spray and set aside.
Place the bittersweet chocolate and butter in a medium bowl set over a pot of simmering water, making sure the water does not touch the bowl. Stir occasionally until melted and smooth, then remove from heat.
Whisk in the sugar, eggs and vanilla and continue whisking until glossy and thick, about 2 minutes. Stir in the flour and salt and mix until just blended. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly.
Stir half of the chopped pecans into your prepared caramel sauce (if you use store-bought, you may have to heat it up slightly before doing this). Drop the caramel pecan mixture by spoonfuls onto the brownie batter. Gently swirl with a wooden skewer or thin metal spatula.
Scatter the remaining pecans and chocolate chips on top.
Bake for about 35 minutes.
Set the pan on a wire rack and allow brownies to cool completely in the pan. Grab the foil overhang to lift the brownies out of the pan. Cut into squares and serve.
Extra brownies can be kept in an airtight container up to a week and will stay even fresher if wrapped individually in plastic wrap.
Recipe from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather, as seen on Cook Like a Champion
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. 
loving the baileys idea! mmmmm
I use the same recipe (I think, I’ve had it for years; a standby. I think it was called “Chocolate Fudge Frosting”)
Best thing EVER to do? add a bit of mint extract – it’s very easily my most popular cake filling.. and my favourite icing to eat by the spoonful lol.
I haven’t found the perfect chocolate frosting yet, so I’ll definitely have to try this one!
i definitely, definitely have to try this soon. i can’t get enough of chocolate!
It’s funny about the no milk thing…I was making a new martini recipe that was super strong, so I thought cream would help it become drinkable – but I had no cream, but I did have Vanilla Caramel Coffeemate…it was great!
Ironically, I almost never have milk and always have Bailey’s. Go figure.
Sometimes you really do need a seriously dark chocolatey frosting. This looks absolutely ideal.
you really got into the food styling there — cute pic with the cupcake in the sprinkles.
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This sounds nice – I’ll have to try it one day! Jen, have you tried King Arthur Flour’s Supersimple Chocolate Frosting recipe? It is my favourite recipe (so far) for chocolate frosting – I’d definitely recommend it!
(Sheesh! deleted to fix a typo! Wish there was an edit function :))
Pegster – I have not tried the KA recipe. It looks similar to this chocolate frosting recipe which is delicious!
The think I love about this frosting is the stiffness and the fudgeness.
I like this frosting for when I want something quick. Otherwise, I like to use frosting that involves melted, good chocolate for those special occasions. YUM! I would gobble up your cupcakes in a second.
Great call on the Bailey’s – my mom would love that icing. I am going to try this next time I make cupcakes.
I would never think to sub bailey’s for milk. Brilliant. I love my chocolate desserts to be super chocolaty – this looks great!
LOVE the super pink sprinkles too. So pretty 😀
Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m hosting a giveaway. I wonder if it would come handy in this baking project…
These look great!! I love your photos!! I’ve been searching for a good chocolate-y frosting and I think I might try this!!
Would you mind checking out my blog? 😀 http://ajscookingsecrets.blogspot.com/
I could have definitely used this recipe for my sourdough chocolate cake this week
http://gamereviewwiki.com/bikinibirthday/2010/06/21/day-158-binge-weekend/
i just made this frosting today to go inside some cupcakes using your cone method. and i topped with vanilla buttercream, at my hubby’s request.
let me just say this was so delicious i had to take my whitening strips out early so i could lick my fingers, and then the bowl. then my 15 month old attacked me to lick the spatula. we were all sugar high and happy before dinner.
my hubby said “every day i am happier i married you because of things like this”
Thanks for sharing this recipe!!!
Kris – I love hearing comments like that! Thanks for trusting my recipes enough to try on your hubby!
Mmm this looks fantastic, though the ingredients look similar to another delicious recipe I’ve used before that is pretty soft. I’m guessing it’s the butter temperature. Should it be room temperature here? Thanks!
You definitely want your butter at room temperature so it creams nicely.
I have the Bailey’s..lol but I’m out of cocoa powder. Have you ever tried subbing it with melted chocolate? And if so how much do you use?
Best frosting ever. Perfect taste, texture and color. It was divine. I will never use another chocolate frosting recipe ever again. Thank you very, very much! It is truly a gift. 🙂
Jen,
I am a person who has been cooking from the age of 5 ….lol now i have certin likes loves and disliks lol however i found a revepie i wanted to make and it called for a fudge type frosting…. knowing i didnt have one i liked for this so i started looking friday night and didnt come across your recepie until saturday morning so i got out my ingreadience.. but i didnt have Balies or white milk i had some Cream de Mint and Choc. Milk so i straied a tad from ur recepie …. i used 1/2 stick of butter, and to get 1/3 cup of liquid i used aprox 1/4 cup of Cream de Mint and the rest Choc. Milk. Plus the res of ur ingreadience …..omg this is the best dark choc fudge frosting ive ever had!!!! And i used the best dk. Cocoa i know of !!!!!! Thankyou thankyou THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a baker and for the life of me I can’t find a thick chocolate fudge frosting. Is this frosting thick? I don’t want anything too creamy, like ganache when you let it sit. Help please!
beantownbaker — February 4th, 2013 @ 9:45 pm
This frosting is definitely thick. You can see in the pictures that it held up nicely to piping. It’s not as creamy as a ganache.
Thank you for responding! 🙂 I see that some people use melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder. Doesn’t it really matter?
beantownbaker — February 5th, 2013 @ 10:13 am
For this recipe, I always use cocoa powder.
If I make these the day before do I have to refrigerate them(since the recipe calls for milk)or can I leave them on the counter covered?
beantownbaker — October 30th, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
You can leave them on the counter. The milk in the frosting stabilizes so it won’t go bad. I’d put them in a covered container though.
Hi. Is the butter you use salted or unsalted?
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 11:01 am
I always use unsalted butter unless specified as salted butter.
This is absolutely THE BEST chocolate frosting recipe I have EVER tried. I used it to frost some homemade vanilla mint cupcakes and topped them with an Andes mint for my daughters sweet 16 party. I had complete strangers tell me I need to open up a bakery and sell nothing but those cupcakes! Thank you so much for posting this. It is truly amazing.
beantownbaker — January 2nd, 2014 @ 1:32 pm
SO glad you enjoy this recipe! Nothing beats a great chocolate frosting.
I can’t wait to try this! I LOVE the flavor of the hersey’s dark choc frosting recipe but its so thin that i can’t use it for cupcakes, only for a cake. I even tried refrigeration overnight to see if that would thicken it up and it didn’t. so i can not wait try to this one for my cupcakes!
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 2:53 pm
I agree. The Hershey’s one is just too thin for cupcakes.
I made a variation on this recipe for my daughter’s birthday cake yesterday and it was fabulous!
I’m still trying to figure out how 6T butter is enough though–I ended up putting in two whole sticks of butter and adding in the milk after the first addition (I added it slowly) of powdered sugar/cocoa combo–it was so thick and dry that my mixer was making new, horrible noises and I was sure it was going to die! LOL