If you are on a diet, stop reading right now. I just want to give you guys a heads up, this is probably the Most Sinful Food You Will Ever Eat.
My friend Cassie says this is a "that-time-of-the-month" kind of treat, and she's absolutely right. When it first came out of the oven, I just wanted to grab a spoon and devour half the pan. Or maybe the whole pan.......
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature (you can use salted butter, just omit the ½ teaspoon salt)
1 cup light brown sugar (I only had dark so I used that and it came out fine)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips (somehow Nestle chocolate chunks were cheaper when I went to the store, so we used those)
10 ounces caramel candy squares, unwrapped
3 tablespoons heavy cream
Fleur de sel (or other sea salt), for sprinkling over caramel and bars
What you do with it:
1. Get started by greasing a 9x9 pan and preheating the oven to 325 degrees. If you don't happen to have a 9x9 pan, you can use a smaller one. You could probably use a round baking pan too. We could only scrounge up a metal pan that seemed to be about 7x7, and that worked just fine. In fact, it gave us "deep-dish" cookies, so the smaller the pan, the more sinful your dessert! If this happens to you, don't even think about cutting the bars smaller.
2. Mix the melted butter and sugars together with an electric mixer. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add the flour, baking soda and salt gradually, keeping the mixer on low until ingredients are just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Assuming you have already unwrapped the caramels, put them in a medium microwave-safe bowl and add the cream. Microwave on high until the caramels are melted, stirring every 20 seconds.
4. Press half of the cookie dough into the pan and pour the melted caramel over the top. Smooth it with a spatula, but leave some room around the edges of the pan. (If you accidentally spread it all the way to the edge, the caramel will bubble up and burn a little, and the pan will be very hard to clean. Not that I speak from personal experience or anything.....) Now comes the fun part! Salt the caramel, being as generous or scanty as you so desire, but making sure to cover the caramel evenly. Then evenly distribute the rest off the cookie dough over the top of the caramel, and sprinkle the salt on that too, for good measure.
6. Bake the bars for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool the pan on a wire rack to room temperature, then put the bars in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow the caramel layer to set. After that, they can be cut into squares and served. Store the leftovers at room temperature in an airtight container.
If, for some reason, you can't wait the whole half hour for the refrigeration step, it's ok. You'll just end up with a messier version of the end product. And ladies, if does happen to be that-time-of-the-month, you have full license to skip the entire fridge step, grab a spoon, and just dig in.
As a last note, I want to give credit where it's due - I stole this recipe from Michelle over at www.browneyedbaker.com. The moment I found it I sent the picture of her bars over to Cassie, my fellow Washingtonian here at school, with a "WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS" caption, and from there it was only a matter of time. Between the two of us, they just barely lasted through the weekend. Yeah, they're that good.
My friend Cassie says this is a "that-time-of-the-month" kind of treat, and she's absolutely right. When it first came out of the oven, I just wanted to grab a spoon and devour half the pan. Or maybe the whole pan.......
So, now that you've been appropriately warned, I'll proceed to tell you how to make them. Basically this is a cookie sandwich with a layer of salted caramel in the middle. Salted caramel, if you've never had it, is amazingness in your mouth. It's the perfect combination of sweet and salty, and although I like pretzels dipped in Nutella as much as the next person, salted caramel is a classier way to pair these flavors. Seattle claims to have been the first city to introduce salted caramel to the U.S. Just another reason to love the Emerald City.
What you'll need:
2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature (you can use salted butter, just omit the ½ teaspoon salt)
1 cup light brown sugar (I only had dark so I used that and it came out fine)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips (somehow Nestle chocolate chunks were cheaper when I went to the store, so we used those)
10 ounces caramel candy squares, unwrapped
3 tablespoons heavy cream
Fleur de sel (or other sea salt), for sprinkling over caramel and bars
What you do with it:
1. Get started by greasing a 9x9 pan and preheating the oven to 325 degrees. If you don't happen to have a 9x9 pan, you can use a smaller one. You could probably use a round baking pan too. We could only scrounge up a metal pan that seemed to be about 7x7, and that worked just fine. In fact, it gave us "deep-dish" cookies, so the smaller the pan, the more sinful your dessert! If this happens to you, don't even think about cutting the bars smaller.
2. Mix the melted butter and sugars together with an electric mixer. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add the flour, baking soda and salt gradually, keeping the mixer on low until ingredients are just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Assuming you have already unwrapped the caramels, put them in a medium microwave-safe bowl and add the cream. Microwave on high until the caramels are melted, stirring every 20 seconds.
4. Press half of the cookie dough into the pan and pour the melted caramel over the top. Smooth it with a spatula, but leave some room around the edges of the pan. (If you accidentally spread it all the way to the edge, the caramel will bubble up and burn a little, and the pan will be very hard to clean. Not that I speak from personal experience or anything.....) Now comes the fun part! Salt the caramel, being as generous or scanty as you so desire, but making sure to cover the caramel evenly. Then evenly distribute the rest off the cookie dough over the top of the caramel, and sprinkle the salt on that too, for good measure.
6. Bake the bars for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool the pan on a wire rack to room temperature, then put the bars in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow the caramel layer to set. After that, they can be cut into squares and served. Store the leftovers at room temperature in an airtight container.
If, for some reason, you can't wait the whole half hour for the refrigeration step, it's ok. You'll just end up with a messier version of the end product. And ladies, if does happen to be that-time-of-the-month, you have full license to skip the entire fridge step, grab a spoon, and just dig in.
As a last note, I want to give credit where it's due - I stole this recipe from Michelle over at www.browneyedbaker.com. The moment I found it I sent the picture of her bars over to Cassie, my fellow Washingtonian here at school, with a "WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS" caption, and from there it was only a matter of time. Between the two of us, they just barely lasted through the weekend. Yeah, they're that good.
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