Not So Salted Caramel Brownies

I have been feeling rather frazzled lately. Example, we had a delayed start to work on Monday, which meant I had two extra hours to get ready and I still managed to leave my wallet at home! My scatter-brained mentality is probably why I had so much trouble deciding on my next baking adventure. First these blueberry turnover pop-tarty thingys caught my eye, and looked super yummy and given Harris Teeter’s recent buy one pint of blueberries get one free, worked perfectly with my mission to turn myself into a giant blueberry from eating so many—think Violet from Willy Wonka, but nicer! Then I decided I wanted to try and make vegan peppermint patties because they are my favorite candy! After much vegan blog perusing (this new adventure is allowing me to hone my time wasting skills), I remembered my promise (to myself) to try making vegan brownies, to see if I could make them “gooey” and “fudgy” as all blog posts pertaining to vegan brownies claim they are.

So what did I land on you ask (hint: it’s in the title)? Vegan salted caramel brownies! My lovely friend Emily (HEY EM!) sent me a recipe for salted caramel brownies and I decided to try and “veganize” it. Now I could have used the eggs because eggs don’t = tummy trouble for me, but I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge (remember that whole Peace Corps thing!?!). I combined two recipes. One for vegan and gluten-free brownies and the one from the recipe Emily sent me for salted caramel sauce (I had to “veganize” this one).

Sorry to disappoint folks, but it was somewhat of a fail. The hardest part was “veganizing” the salted caramel sauce. I searched and searched (again with the time wasting…) for a vegan salted caramel recipe and couldn’t find one. I used Earth Balance instead of butter, which seemed to be an adequate substitute, although I don’t think Earth Balance tastes quite the same as butter. I subbed in soy creamer for the heavy cream and this is where I think the problem really was. Soy creamer is very watery and I think this resulted in a watery caramel sauce. Not to mention I had to make the salted caramel sauce twice because I let the sugar get too hot and burned the first batch. Apparently my definition of the “dark amber” color the sugar should be (as indicated in the recipe) was a little off!

The brownie recipe used one of my absolute favorite things, Bisquick! I know it seems strange, but the gluten-free Bisquick is the perfect flour blend for vegan brownies, plus it reminds me of weekend mornings when my mom would make us pancakes in the shape of bunnies (my favorite animal)! The recipe called for jam, which is what I think made these brownies delicious! I used organic strawberry jam. I was shocked with the final product, because you can’t taste the jam at all but the brownies are really fudgy (yup I accomplished the fudgy part) but not necessarily gooey.*

I added the water-logged salted caramel to my brownie batter, following the recipe instructions, but was more than a little panicked when I saw how watery it looked in the pan. I figured I had nothing to lose and would just bake them anyway! Ultimately, you can’t taste the salted caramel sauce at all and if I hadn’t put it in, I wouldn’t know it was there. The brownies are still delicious though and I actually covered them to stop myself from eating the whole plate!

* I will NEVER use the word moist on this site. Honestly I just cringed typing it; I hate it for some unexplained reason! But if you are a fan of the “word I will not say/write” feel free to substitute it for other similar words I might use!