Salted Chocolate Caramel Brownies

Last summer I worked on a fabulous cook book called the Fire Island Cook Book.
It was written by 2 of the nicest guys I know – Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jensen, also known as The World Wine Guys. They have the awful job of travelling around the world writing about wine and food. Poor things.
This cook book was inspired by Mike and Jeff’s summers on Fire Island, which is about a 2 hour drive East of New York City. We had such fun shooting it, and with my great friend Paul Lowe aka Sweet Paul doing food and props, they were the best 4 days ever.
The recipes, by the way, are so delicious and pretty easy to make. You can buy the book here.
I’ll post more of the dishes that we shot in the next few weeks, but this one I had to do first.
Who can resist dense cake-y chocolate with salted caramel sauce.
Not me!

Recipe:

Brownies –
8 ounces / 225g unsweetened chocolate *
8 ounces / 225g butter (or 2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
* a side note – I used semi sweet chocolate chips because that is all I had. I then halved the sugar to 1 cup

Salted Caramel Sauce –
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teasoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon Fleur De Sel / Maldon Salt

Method for Brownies:
Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C
Butter a 9 x 12 inch metal baking pan

On a double boiler (make sure top container is not touching the water – see here for how to set up a double boiler), bring the water in the pan to a boil.
Place the chocolate and butter in the bowl and stir until melted.
Whisk in the sugar. Remove from the heat and let rest.
Whisk the eggs in a seperate bowl.
Little by little add the melted chocolate into the eggs, whisking constantly until completely mixed.
Slowly add flour and salt until everything is combined.
Pour the mixture into the baking pan and bake for about 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out relatively clean.
Be careful not to overcook.
Let cool for about 20 minutes.

Method for Salted Caramel Sauce:
In the meantime, heat the sugar in a heavy bottomed medium saucepan over a moderate  to high heat, whisking constantly.
When the sugar begins to bubble, stop stirring and wait until it begins to caramelize to an amber colour.
Add the butter and begin whisking again.
After all the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat and add the heavy cream a little at a time. It is important to continue to whisk at this stage. If the cream foams up don’t worry, this is normal. Just keep mixing.
When all the cream is added and the foaming stops, add the fine sea salt and stir well.
Let the salted caramel rest until the brownies come out the oven.

While the brownies are warm and are still in the pan, pour the caramel sauce over the top until evenly coated.
If the sauce has become hard, just heat it up for a minute or two.
Sprinkle with the Fleur de Sel / Maldon Salt and let cool for 2 hours.

Now the challenge is to keep your fingers out of the pan for those 2 hours.
Who can do it?
Not me!