If you recall, I wasn’t revealing the source of my brownie recipe for entering my company’s bake-off. Well, now it can be told: I used Bake It in a Cake’s recipe for Fran’s Salted Caramel Brownie Bites, and I walked away with People’s Choice — enough votes to put me in the running for my company’s bake-off finale! Yay! I received compliments all day long on this recipe, which even tempted the strict dieters to sample a bite or two. I did modify it slightly, though, so be sure to read on before you try it yourself! — Mary T.

First things first: The recipe appears on the Bake it in a Cake site without an oven temperature, so I set my oven to 350F, basing it on her other recipes. My first batch was a little bit overcooked (caramels and chocolate can get burned and overly chewy fast) so for the second batch, I only baked for 15 minutes, and that was perfection.

The brownies: The recipe calls for Fran’s Salted Caramels, and yes, they are spendy — nearly $10 for eight of them. Because the brownie bites are small, I compromised by cutting each caramel in half before placing them inside the batter. This still worked out to plenty of caramel-y goodness without having to spend inordinate amounts of cash. It’s important for this recipe that you use high quality, soft caramels whether or not those are Fran’s. (Kraft Caramels, for instance, are much too hard to use in this recipe; they simply won’t be soft and chewy enough after baking.)

The frosting: I modified the recipe slightly. Instead of mixing salt into the icing, I sprinkled a bit of coarse sea salt on top of each cupcake after frosting. Not only did this look pretty and taste great, it saved me from having to stress about whether I was adding too much or too little salt to the frosting as I was mixing it. I did actually use Kraft Caramels to make the frosting — because they are melted and mixed with whipping cream, this worked out just fine. I did add a bit more whipping cream than the recipe called for, however, just to make sure it stayed spreadable and delicious.

The final round of the bake-off is next week (I only had to win one round to qualify, as it turned out). The final round is cakes – not exactly my strong suit; ulp. Stay tuned.