I call dibs on that center brownie with the oozing caramel heart. You can have the rest. Wait wait, I want a corner piece, too! I choose the lower right–though it’s the smallest, it has another oozing caramel heart. The way to my heart is oozing chocolate caramel hearts, did you know?
The hunt for chocolate heart candy for caramel brownies:
More fun facts about me: I spent 30 minutes in Target last week sorting through every brand of chocolate hearts to find the prettiest one for brownies. I spread all of the bags out of the floor, and then went down the row, googling them one by one, to see what they looked like unwrapped. If you were one of the people that I scared away from coming down the Valentine’s Day candy aisle, I am so sorry. It’s clear now. The crazy lady is gone–you’re free to go back to Target now. After intense research, I settled on the Hershey’s brand caramel-filled hearts. I’m a bit of a Valentine’s Day candy expert (<–click for proof!), and I believe this is the first year Hershey’s has made these hearts. Or, at least it’s the first year for the new heart design. A heart within a heart, oh so romantic! You won me over. The runner-up was a Nestle crunch heart. Okay okay, maybe it was only the runner-up because I ate most of the bag on the way home from the store and didn’t have enough to make these caramel brownies. There are Butterfingers hearts and Reese’s peanut butter hearts this year, too! You have so many options to make the cutest heart brownies! What a time to be alive, people!
Okay, I’m going to leave you with the recipe for these caramel brownies. You guys love my small-batch brownies recipe so much, that you always ask if you can double it and bake it in a 8x8-inch square pan. And the answer is YES! It tastes very close to a boxed brownie mix (which, let’s be honest: major plus), and I can’t get enough of the crackly top. Here, the chocolate hearts get in the way of the beautiful crackly brownie surface, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Because chocolate caramel hearts are the way to my heart. I think we went over this.
