Caramel Cornflake Brownies

You've earned this

Aug 02, 2026

∙ Paid

Hey, thanks for being here! My newsletter is entirely reader-supported, meaning it only exists thanks to people like you. If you want to help support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Sometimes the best recipes are just two great desserts glued together with caramel, and that’s exactly what we have here.

Folks, it’s been a long few weeks. The toughest part of writing a cook book is (perhaps surprisingly) not the actual writing bit… it’s the publication bit. If you’re new here, my new cook book “Stress-Free Dinners” came out a few weeks ago and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind since then. A very fun, exciting whirlwind. I’ll go into all the fun details in the weekly catch-up, but needless to say, my feet have barely touched the ground.

So when I found myself with an empty day in my diary this week, I knew what had to happen: BAKING! You have all been so patient. So many of my recipes on here recently have been savoury, some of them have been snatched straight from the new cook-book (what can I say, I gotta promote that thing!) but today we’re going back to what we all love most. Delicious, outrageously indulgent baked goods.

This one is a hybrid bake. It’s a combo of caramel cornflake cakes and super fudgy vegan brownies. Cornflake-based desserts in general are super nostalgic for me. As a kid, they used to serve a caramel cornflake pie for dessert at school (probably with custard) that combined a shortcrust pastry base with crispy, caramel-coated cornflakes. I’ve wanted to recreate this nostalgic classic for years now, and I guess this is my first step towards that.

So first I set out to figure out the perfect caramel cornflake combo recipe. First I tried by making a caramel from sweetened condensed (oat) milk, almost like the caramel used in a banoffee pie. I suspect this is how the dinner ladies at my primary school would’ve done it. However condensed oat milk (and coconut milk, I tried both) don’t quite thicken in the same way as condensed milk.

So I went back to the drawing board and whipped up a classic caramel with melted, caramelised sugar. I was going to add vegan cream, but I wanted to make sure this recipe was accessible for people who can’t get hold of store-bought vegan cream. So instead, I used a homemade blend of silken tofu and melted vegan butter. This worked beautifully.

For the brownies (the base of this recipe) I looked to my Coconut Caramel Brownies (but without the coconut caramel) from a previous Substack post. These are super simple to make but use a couple of new techniques to help achieve that glossy finish on top, without any animal products. The key is to make sure your sugar is fully dissolved and your chocolate is fully melted before combining (full method in the recipe, of course).

The final step is to add the cornflake mixture to the brownies (while still in the tin) and refrigerate until set. My main fear with these brownies was that the caramel cornflake mixture wouldn’t set firm enough to slice. But don’t worry. Everything worked out! The moisture of the caramel was low enough to set, without making the cornflakes lose their crunch (see the video below and turn that sound up to full!)

I know people might feel weird about refrigerating brownies, and I’d agree if these were cakey brownies. But they’re not. Because I’m not a sociopath. They’re super fudgy, so chilling them slightly makes them even richer and fudgier.

The full recipe for these Caramel Cornflake Brownies is at the bottom of this newsletter and it’s available to all paid subscription tiers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack. If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

Now for a quick…

I Did An Evening At Fortnums

For the uninitiated, Fortnum and Mason’s is a large, very old, very fancy department store in London that’s always been at the forefront when it comes to great going food. I remember when I was a kid, my Dad received a Fortnum’s Christmas hamper from a very fancy business colleague and we all acted like it was the first time we’d ever seen food. I think we made the tin of cookies last about six months, like a gaggle of Dickensian orphans.

But this week, no brag, one of those Dickensian orphans hosted an evening of food and chat at the very same Fortnum’s! We served some delicious vegan salads and of course, some of those cookies for dessert (vegan too obvs). Then we did an interview about my new book. If you turned up for this event, I’m super grateful (especially my dear friend Colin, who I know reads this, despite being way too smart for it). Thank you so much folks! Here’s me in their fancy wooden lift, and a selection of the Fortnum’s cook books!

I Made Roasted Tomato Salsa

I came home from a few days in London to The Fridge That Time Forgot. I had a bunch of really lovely seasonal tomatoes which were starting to get a bit sad, and a little too wrinkly for a salad. So I decided to roast them up with some onions, garlic and chipotle to make a sort of Salsa Roja.

I added some rehydrated ancho and guajillo chiles, a squeeze of agave and some fresh lime juice, and hey presto! Tomatoes saved from oblivion!

I Was In The Guardian!

Two recipes from my new book made it to The Guardian’s Feast magazine! They chose the Thai Fishless Cakes and my “Pho Now or Pho Later” - a sort of meal-prepper’s noodle soup! It’s so great to see my food in a newspaper I’ve been reading since I was 18, but what’s even more satisfying is that they took photos of the recipes themselves, and they turned out beautifully! I very rarely get to see what home-made versions of my food look like, so this was a real treat.

You can find the online versions here!

I Did a Masterclass At Google

So it turns out that the Google campus in London’s Kings Cross actually has a fully equipped cooking school inside! I was invited to host a cooking class there for their staff this week. We made Pretzel Crusted Maple Mustard Sandwiches with Broccoli Slaw, as well as Blueberry Paratha Pies. Both from my new cook book.

The team were amazing. some vegans, some not, but all of them super interested and engaged. Really fun experience! Huge shout-out to their resident cooking teacher Chef Dan - he gave me a tour of the building after and literally everyone knew who he was. It seems a tech giant marches on its stomach too!