Salted Caramel Brownies

Ingredients

• 3 eggs, large
• 80 g plain flour
• 200 g light brown sugar
• 150 g unsalted butter, cubed
• 200 g dark chocolate, 70%, roughly chopped
• 30 g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp double cream
• 1 tsp flaky sea salt
• 150 g soft caramel toffees

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180°C fan. Grease a 20cm square tin and line with baking paper, leaving a generous overhang on two sides — that's your handle for lifting the slab out cleanly later.
2. Set the chopped chocolate and cubed butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, base not touching the water. Stir gently for 4–5 minutes until glossy and smooth, then lift off and cool for 5 minutes — pour it in too hot and you'll scramble the eggs.
3. Meanwhile, melt the caramel toffees with the double cream in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly for 3–4 minutes until thick and pourable. Watch it — caramel scorches the second you stop stirring, and burnt caramel turns bitter. Set aside.
4. Whisk the eggs, brown sugar and vanilla in a large bowl for 2–3 minutes until pale, thickened and ribbony — the trail of the whisk should sit on the surface for a count of three. This is what gives brownies their crackled top. Pour in the cooled chocolate mixture and fold through until uniform and glossy.
5. Sift the flour and cocoa over the top, add a pinch of fine salt to lift the chocolate, and fold until just combined — stop the moment the streaks disappear. Overworking now means cakey brownies, not fudgy ones. Taste the batter on the spoon: it should taste deeply chocolatey with the salt sharpening the cocoa, not flat or one-note. Adjust with another small pinch if it needs it.
6. Scrape into the prepared tin and level the surface. Drop the caramel over the batter in fat blobs — eight or nine pools — then drag a skewer through in slow figure-of-eights to marble it. Don't overdo it; you want ribbons, not a uniform swirl.
7. Scatter generously with flaky sea salt across the whole surface — this is the salted in salted caramel, and it goes on before the bake so it sets into the crackled crust.
8. Bake for 25–28 minutes. The top should be set and crackled with a faint wobble at the centre when you nudge the tin — a skewer will come out with moist crumbs, not wet batter. Carryover cooking firms them as they cool, so pull on the early side if you want them properly fudgy.
9. Cool completely in the tin before lifting out by the paper overhang. Cut into 16 squares with a long knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry between cuts — that's how you get clean edges and visible caramel ribbons. Finish each square with a final pinch of flaky sea salt and serve with cold double cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside.