Here's a secret for the easiest homemade salted caramel ever. Simply heat together milk, sea salt and... chewy caramel sweets. In our recipe, it's mixed with puffed rice cereal (like Rice Krispies), tipped into a tin and chilled in the fridge, for an indulgent afternoon treat. The perfect pick-me-up.
Not your average brownies, these moreish bites incorporate a taste of the Levant. Roughly chopped pistachios add crunch, blitzed Medjool dates stirred through the mixture add a warm sweetness and tahini brings a welcome nuttiness. To create the swirled effect on top, dot the tahini in random spots then drag a skewer through it.
Just 10 minutes of prep are required, then this easy no-bake cake goes into the fridge to set. It's layered with flavour and texture: crunchy toasted seeds, pops of sharpness from dried cranberries, bitter-sweet pistachios, the sweet warmth of ginger snap cookies and rich dark chocolate. You could play around with the chocolate too – try using dark mint or orange bars.
This scrumptious one-tin bake combines two classic treats: blondies and banana bread. This gloriously indulgent recipe features fudgy caramel swirls, white chocolate chips and dashes of warming cinnamon. Not only does this recipe taste incredible, but it's also a great way to use up any overripe bananas. A win-win, we'd say.
These decadent brownies are packed with whole cookies and cream biscuits – and chopped pieces too, which ensure you get a taste of brownie and cookie in every bite. Perfect for chocolate lovers or for those occasions where you can’t decide between having a brownie or a cookie.
Yogurt and desiccated coconut make the sponge for this cake delightfully light and moist. And by scattering the chopped mango on top of the batter once it's in the tin, the fruit will be partly exposed so it'll caramelise when baked. If there are any leftovers (and that's a big if), store the cake in the fridge and gently warm slices in the microwave as needed.
You'll need a little patience for the dough to rise and rest, but this tasty treat is very straightforward to make. Just a little mixing, kneading and rolling the day before means you can wake up and bake cinnamon buns fresh for breakfast. They're chilled overnight in the same tin you bake them in, so there's no fuss in the morning. Just whip up an easy cream cheese glaze to spread over the buns while they're warm from the oven.
Y don't even have to turn on the oven for this one. The caramel flavour in these no-bake cheesecake bars comes from speculoos, everyone's favourite Belgian biscuit, mixed with cream cheese and speculoos spread, also known as cookie butter. They tick all the boxes: simple, satisfying and sweet, and relatively affordable to make with store-cupboard ingredients.
Stirring crunchy peanut butter into a brownie mixture is such a great idea as the peanut butter adds a pleasing savoury note and texture. A jar of shop-bought caramel sauce, which is also mixed into the batter, is a helpful shortcut and provides a sweet note to balance the flavour.
Get the recipe for peanut butter caramel brownies here
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This sponge cake is the perfect pairing for an afternoon cup of tea or coffee. Baked in a lined tin, it's light and fluffy with a crusty top and chunks of juicy cherries and bitter dark chocolate – simply perfection.
It's not just bread that you can make with a sourdough starter. Use it in crumpets, pancakes or, our favourite, brownies. It replaces the flour in a typical brownie recipe (a starter is made up of flour and water) and gives a squidgy, moist, deliciously dense result. As with any brownie, you can play around with additions to the basic mixture. This recipe suggests chopped walnuts and tahini, but you could choose a different nut or add dried sour cherries or cranberries to cut through the rich chocolate.
White chocolate and raspberries are a match made in heaven – the sharpness of the fruit cuts through the sweetness of the white chocolate. The brownie base is made with dark chocolate, with chunks of white chocolate stirred in. The raspberry cheesecake mixture is swirled through the brownie base.
Get the recipe for chocolate and raspberry cheesecake brownies here
This is a super indulgent take on rocky road and it looks amazing too. Dried apples, Dutch stroopwafel (caramel wafers) and mini marshmallows give it chew, while hazelnuts and salted pretzels add crunch. You'll be struggling to stop after just one piece.
Get the recipe for toffee apple and salted pretzel rocky road here
A healthier but still decadent brownie, this recipe incorporates grated courgette which adds a moist texture. The mix also includes warming spices like cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg. Once you whip up a batch, you'll want to make these again and again.
A lovely treat inspired by the popular Australian cake, this one-tray version incorporates raspberries and vanilla cream for a truly indulgent slice to enjoy with tea or coffee. The cake will keep up to four days, if you can last that long without eating it all.
These dark chocolate and peanut butter fudge bites will look like they're made by a professional, with very little effort. Good-quality, natural peanut butter is stirred into the easy-to-make fudge mixture. Once set and cooled, it's topped with melted chocolate and sprinkled with coarse sea salt.
Masterfully mixing sweet and sour flavours, this meringue pie is reminiscent of key lime pie. The custard filling is spiked with sharp grapefruit juice and zest, and topped with a sweet and soft layer of toasted meringue.
These triple chocolate cheesecake brownies are incredibly rich and decadent. They feature a layer of coffee-infused, dark chocolate brownie at the bottom, dulce de leche and toasted hazelnuts in the middle, and orange and almond baked cheesecake on top.
Get the recipe for triple chocolate cheesecake brownies here
This healthier chocolate treat is made with puréed chickpeas, peanut butter and dates – there's no butter added and only natural sugars. They're also very rich so you only need a small portion to hit the spot.
Dulce de leche is a caramelised milk jam from Argentina and don't say we didn't warn you – it's highly addictive. Make it at home with our recipe or to save time, buy it from the supermarket and add sea salt. This brownie has a soft gooey centre with a handful of crunchy hazelnuts or pecans.
Get the recipe for chocolate brownies with dulce de leche here
We know nuts and berries is a winning combination and in this dense, rich blackberry cake, the pistachio adds an almost baklava-like flavour. It's best eaten the day it is made on account of the fruit.
This is a three-in-one dessert that incorporates elements of fridge cake, rocky road and s'mores into one ridiculously delicious treat. We love that the roasted marshmallows start to catch and caramelise under a hot oven.
This is a perfect brownie to serve after a meal with coffee. The espresso in the mixture provides a pleasant bitter contrast to the sweetness of the chocolate. It's egg and dairy-free: oil is used instead of butter so you don't lose that fudgy texture.
Baking a batch of rich gooey brownies is a guaranteed way to lift spirits on a dark day. These ones contain 70% dark chocolate (use the best quality you can get) and hazelnuts for a pleasing crunch.
For all the white chocolate lovers out there, this blondie is made with mashed bananas, peanut butter and lashings of white chocolate. It's topped with a simple glacé icing. Put your timer on for this one – if you overcook it, it will turn into a brick, not a blondie!
Is there anything that goes together better than chocolate and coconut? The easy chuck-it-all-together method and heaps of dark chocolate make this recipe hard to resist. It tastes best still warm and squidgy from the oven.
These aren’t ordinary oat bars – they contain peanut butter, banana, cinnamon, vanilla and desiccated coconut, giving them the most fruity flavour. They don't contain any added sugar or fat, making them great for an all-natural treat.
A simple recipe that'll hit the spot when you're craving a treat. A basic mix of butter, flour, eggs, milk and sugar, this traybake also has berries mixed in for a juicy and sweet bite. The recipe calls for a mix of berries but you can use whatever you prefer or have to hand.
This super cute topping of mini chocolate eggs would be great around Easter but you can mix and match the candy depending on the time of year, or just want you fancy. The dark chocolate brownie batter incorporates dark muscovado sugar which gives it an intense depth of flavour with hints of caramel and treacle. Vanilla cheesecake mixture is swirled in too.
The ultimate treat when you're after a sugary hit, this recipe incorporates dried apricots into a chewy flapjack mix. Our recipe suggests topping the baked and cooled flapjacks with a drizzle of white chocolate, but feel free to experiment with milk or dark chocolate.
Get the recipe for apricot and white chocolate flapjacks here
This homemade millionaire’s shortbread is incomparable to shop-bought. It has a crumbly base; a thick layer of vanilla, Biscoff and date caramel; and is topped with smooth, dark chocolate – be sure to choose the best you can find. It’s also vegan.
This oaty, fruity granola cake will keep in an airtight container for a week (if it's not eaten sooner). It freezes well so we suggest making a double batch and stockpiling squares in the freezer for those days when you know you’ll need an afternoon pick-me-up.
Dark chocolate chips and cardamom give carrot cake a new twist in this recipe. It’s topped with a moreish browned butter and cream cheese frosting, orange zest and chocolate shavings. The cake will keep for up to four days – but we reckon it'll be gone much sooner.
A classic brownie is combined with cheesecake mix, made from cream cheese and vanilla, to make a great dessert. Serve with a side of ice cream to make it even more decadent. You can put your own twist on this recipe too, folding in sour cherries and white chocolate, or some peanut butter.