Salted Caramel Chocolate Meringue Brownies – intense chocolate brownie, sticky salted caramel, and peaks of gooey torched meringue.  Jump to Recipe 

I have finally found a way to get something out of that commute to the hospital. Podcasts. Or TedTalks, more specifically. 15 minute segments of interesting, original ideas, presented from the unique perspectives of experts in those fields, who more often than not are captivating public speakers. Perfect for the 45 minutes sitting in the car when I might otherwise be flicking mindlessly through peak-hour radio shows and adverts. And I’m not forcing myself to listen – this isn’t a microbiology channel, or a way of studying by listening to a podcast on the treatment of heart failure – it is what I might choose to watch if I had a few more hours spare in the evening.

Already, I’ve learnt that my procrastination habit might really be sign of innate creativity (I wish). But in the talk “The surprising habits of highly original thinkers”, Adam Grant details his psychology experiments where they discovered that the most creativity is generated by people who don’t complete the task set them straight away: they start early, but take almost until the due date to finish, leaving it churning away in the back of their mind for the longest period. However, this doesn’t mean you should wait until the night before to start something…because you will be so stressed and rushed that you won’t have much creativity then either! And you should always doubt your ideas – because when have doubt, you will go onto make improvements and refinements, searching for a better option. Kind of counterintuitive.

I never thought conversation was something that should be studied, but Celeste Headlee (the award-winning radio host) convinced me in ’10 ways to have a better conversation’. One of her points was that we have an overwhelming habit of thinking of something – an anecdote, something from our day, something sparked by what someone said 2 minutes ago – and then not really listening anymore until we say our bit. We then become “just two people shouting out barely related sentences in the same place”. Maybe a little extreme, but you get the gist. It happens to me, it has happened to people talking to me, it happens in TV interviews and on radio – and I had never really noticed it as a issue. Because you stop listening properly.

I’ll stop before I bore you to death, but both those talks are 100% worth a listen. It’s just 15 minutes, after all.

And if you can’t be bothered to make better conversation – just make these salted caramel chocolate meringue brownies, and people will love you anyway. A dark, rich, chocolate-studded brownie is topped with a layer of sticky salted caramel. Glossy meringue is piped into peaks on top, then torched until a speckled gradient of white and brown emerges. More salted caramel is drizzled on top – because I couldn’t help myself. It felt right, okay? 

So in your mouthful, you end up with intensely dark chocolate brownie, salty-sweet caramel, and a balancing fluffy cloud of meringue. It’s hard to stop at a single piece.

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Salted caramel pretzel brownies – crunchy pretzel crust topped with rich, fudgey dark chocolate brownie and a sticky, gooey, sweet-salty caramel.  Jump to Recipe 

Just booked a Gelato Messina appreciation class!! They are normally only held in Sydney, but have just opened up one class per month in Fitzroy (Melbourne) for the rest of this year. Clearly I jumped at the opportunity – two hours of learning to make gelato, having a gelato degustation, getting to try as many flavours as you want out of the cabinet (up to 40!) and taking your own tub of gelato home – there was no way I was passing it up. Gelato Messina is legendary here, having been voted best gelato in Australia by the Good Food Guide, and for good reason: as well as the 40 permanent flavours (salted caramel and white chocolate, chocolate fondant, pandan and coconut, pear and rhubarb..), they also offer 5 weekly special flavours – crazy combinations that constantly bring people back for more. Some of my favourite specials have been the Crack Pie and Cereal Milk (based on Christina Tosi’s infamous Momofuku Milk Bar creations) and the Robert Brownie Jnr (chocolate gelato with chocolate brownie and chocolate fudge), but other recent flavours have included Copper’s Delight (peanut butter and coffee gelato layered with coffee caramel and doughnuts) and LMP (lemon custard gelato with shortcrust, baked meringue and lemon curd). You get the picture.

Also: only two more days of university left for the semester! Cannot believe it. This year is absolutely flying by – I did my first blog post here on January 20th, and now almost four months have passed. I do feel like writing has become easier: both my reviews and recipe posts take less time and the words seem to come a little more naturally than they initially did. And I love it – blogging provides such a different, and more creative, outlet than university work, and gives me a chance to get a bit of perspective and get my brain out of science and study mode, even if just for a short time. However, without a kitchen at college, all this inspiration and motivation to try recipes I have seen on other blogs or attempt flavour combinations I have experienced at cafes is being built up higher and higher – I definitely need to get home soon for the break and spend some serious time baking.

However, I did get to make something pretty amazing (if I do say so myself!) last week, which I couldn’t wait any longer to share with you. I commandeered a friend’s kitchen to make these Salted Caramel Pretzel Brownies for Cathy’s birthday – we had been eyeing up a few similar recipes during lectures (oops) and her upcoming birthday presented the perfect opportunity to surprise her with them. Without a 20x30cm tin available, I ended up using a 20×20 tin (probably better considering how rich they are!), and adapted a few different recipes – so was a little apprehensive about the result.

They turned out to be an absolute winner. The crunchy, salty pretzel crust blended with the brownie – rich, fudgey, dark chocolate – and the sticky, gooey, sweet-salty combo of the caramel topping to create the perfect mouthful of omg-just-one-more. Yes, the runny caramel can make a bit of a mess, and leave you with sticky fingers, and yes, it can be a little tricky to cut – but it is SO worth it. Keep it in the fridge so the caramel doesn’t melt absolutely everywhere, and pull it 10 or 20 minutes before serving to get it back to that perfect state of melty gooey crunchiness. YES.

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