Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Tags

bars, caramel, chocolate, cookie, salted caramel

In case you haven’t figured it out, I’ve been in a sort of rut lately. Not really motivated to blog, or even bake and cook. It’s most unfortunate. I’m hoping it’ll get better soon because I’ve been bookmarking a bunch of recipes that I want to try! I did have this recipe bookmarked for quite a while now, and I even bought the caramels before I moved with the intention to make them a couple months ago. Obviously that didn’t happen… (and yes, I should really try to make my own caramel but it scares me! My first attempt years ago failed miserably, as in it burned, and I haven’t tried since.)

But about these cookie bars, they use the best chocolate chip cookie recipe which is chewy and scrumptious, adds a gooey layer of salted caramel, and a sprinkling of salt for a sweet/salty combo. These cookie bars are absolutely divine. And I wasn’t very eager to share! My husband and I ate most of them, but I did share a couple with my sister, because I’m that nice! Hehe. I mostly wanted to get them out of the house to resist temptation. 🙂 But you should totally make these… they’re worth turning the oven on!!!

One Year Ago: Pumpkin-Cranberry Bread and Zuppa Toscana

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Yield: 16 cookie bars

2¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
10 ounces caramel candy squares, unwrapped
3 tablespoons heavy cream
Fleur de sel or other sea salt, for sprinkling

Preheat oven 325 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients; set aside. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugars by hand or with a mixer until thoroughly combined. Beat in egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Add dry ingredients and mix slowly until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

In a medium microwave-safe bowl, combine the caramels and heavy cream. Microwave on high for 2 minutes, or until the caramels are melted, making sure to stir every 20 seconds.

Press half of the cookie dough into the prepared pan with either your fingers or a spatula, smoothing the top. Pour the hot caramel over the cookie dough in the pan and spread into an even layer, leaving a small border without caramel along the edges; sprinkle the caramel with sea salt. Take the remaining dough and flatten bits between your fingers to create shingles; place the shingles on top of the caramel, slightly overlapping them until all the caramel is covered. Smooth out the top layer of dough. Sprinkle the bars with additional sea salt.

Bake the cookie bars for 30 minutes, or until the top of the bars are light golden brown and the edges start to pull away from the pan. Cool the bars in the pan on a wire rack to room temperature, then refrigerate for about 30 minutes to allow the caramel layer to set. Cut into squares and serve. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

Source: Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

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Brownie Pops, and Happy 4th of July!!

Tags

brownie, brownie pop, cake pop, chocolate, dessert

Hope everyone in the US is enjoying all the celebrations paired with July 4th! And everyone else, happy Wednesday! Personally, I don’t really have any spectacular plans. My husband always sees a Will Smith movie or an alien movie on July 4th, so I think we’re going to see Men in Black 3 and hopefully we’ll get to see fireworks! They’re my favorite part of this holiday, afterall! 🙂So for today, I don’t really have a recipe per say, but a festive treat nonetheless. My nephew turned 2 last week and he had his party over the weekend. Since I live so close to my sister now, I helped her decorate and prepare for the party. It was a cute red and blue themed train party! I was in charge of dessert, like usual, and her request was brownie pops. She didn’t want to go through the hassle of making cake and making frosting and mixing them together (and by that, I think she didn’t want me to take the time and dishes to do all that :P). She wanted it simple, so she asked if I had a good fudgy brownie recipe that would require no extra add-ins and could be made into pops due to the extremely moist and fudgy quality of the brownies. I immediately recommended the Baked Brownie. Best brownie ever, and awesome for brownie pops!Like I said, I was in charge of the baking, so with the help of my older nephew, we made the brownies. Once cooled, I squished and rolled them into 1-inch ball, placed them on wax paper, stuck a lollipop stick into them, and froze them for 30 minutes. They were then dipped into melted chocolate chips/melts, allowed to set, then dipped halfway into melted white chocolate chips/melts and dipped in sprinkles. For my first attempt at any sort of cake pop/brownie pop, they came out pretty well though they certainly are a bit of work and time! Everyone loved them and they came out quite adorable if I do say so myself, but I think I’ll stick to cupcakes and cookies and whatnot! 🙂 One batch of brownies made about 45 brownie pops, and then we served the other batch of brownies straight up with the extra chocolates drizzled over them and any leftover sprinkles. I also wanted to share with you these cool stars that my sister found. You make them yourself with your choice of scrapbook paper, and they were a really nice addition to the party decorations. She now has them hanging in my nephew’s room and they look really cute in there, too!

So, that’s it for today! Hope everyone has a wonderful July 4th, and happy Wednesday! 🙂

P.S. I apologize for the quality of the photos… camera phone 😉

One Year Ago: Panko-Crusted Salmon