Caramel Brownie Recipe (THE BEST EVER!)

This isn't a food blog, but it would be immoral for me not to share this recipe with the world. These brownies are the greatest.

Caramel Brownies

(The following set of directions are explained in great detail, for n00bs like me. Scroll to the bottom for the short version.)

Ingredients:

1 lb caramels- the soft kind that you can melt- not chocolate-covered or anything
1 can evaporated milk (need 5/6 cup, aka 6.7 fl oz)
1 chocolate cake mix- German chocolate is good, Devil's Food is good, whatever, just something with a lot of chocolate
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup melted butter or margarine

Only 5 ingredients. Plus oil to grease the pan.

1. Unwrap all the caramels. (Haha, this is perhaps the most important step.) Melt the caramels and 1/2 cup evaporated milk over low heat. KEEP AN EYE ON THIS! You don't want the caramels to burn. Basically these are going to be melting while you work on the other parts of the recipe. Make sure you stir it a lot. And it needs to be on LOW heat.

(If you realize that mixing the other ingredients/ finding a clean brownie pan/ trying to figure out how the oven works is taking way longer than you expected, take the caramels off the heat for a bit. DON'T BURN THEM!)

If it boils, you're doing it wrong.

2. Mix cake mix, melted butter, and 1/3 cup evaporated milk.
3. Press 1/2 of the cake mixture into a 13x9 greased pan. It may look like there's not enough to cover the entire bottom of the pan. You can use a little more than half if you want, but not too much. Spread it out so it covers the whole bottom of the pan. Also, it's a good idea to put the bowl with the other half of the cake mixture in the fridge, while this is baking.

4. Bake at 350 F for 8 minutes.
5. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.
6. Pour caramel mixture over the chocolate chips. Use a spoon to spread the caramel all around so it covers basically the whole thing.

Protip: If you want the pan to be easy to clean, don't spread the caramel all the way to the edges. The downside of this method is the edge brownies get less caramel. You need to carefully consider your priorities.

7. Crumble the rest of the cake mixture on top of the caramel.
8. Bake at 350 for 18 minutes. The brownies will be really gooey- let them cool all the way before you eat them. Just kidding, no one actually does that. These things are so awesome- no one wants to wait til they're cool.

And if you screw it up, well, how bad can it be? It's full of chocolate and caramel- it will probably still taste awesome. (There have been times I burned the caramels, and it still tasted fine.)

Image source.

And here is the short version of the recipe, without all my commentary and photos:

Ingredients:
1 lb caramels
1 can evaporated milk (need 5/6 cup, aka 6.7 fl oz)
1 chocolate cake mix
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup melted butter or margarine

1. Melt the caramels and 1/2 cup evaporated milk over low heat.
2. Mix cake mix, melted butter, and 1/3 cup evaporated milk.
3. Press 1/2 of the cake mixture into a 13x9 greased pan.
4. Bake at 350 F for 8 minutes.
5. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.
6. Pour caramel mixture over the chocolate chips.
7. Crumble the rest of the cake mixture on top of the caramel.
8. Bake at 350 for 18 minutes.