Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

My husband hates cake and most sweets. I love any type of chocolate, and have eaten an entire cake by myself on more than one occasion. He likes salt, I can barely stand it in most dishes. We are opposites snack and food wise. When we got married he could care less about the cake. He nodded his head and pretended to be listening, but in the end I chose everything myself. He did have a ton of opinions on the meat try at the buffet at our reception, I could have cared less. Sometimes I have to laugh at how different our food tastes our. When we went to Columbus for a job interview when we were in our mid twenties we went to a restaurant. I ordered mini beer battered corn dogs, he ordered a sashimi lettuce wrap plate. The waitress gave me his and him mine. Nope, I love fried fattening foods and he likes salad. He likes savory, I like sweet. One of my husband's new favorite flavors is salted caramel. He has found caramel sauce, ice cream, candy, you name it, if it comes in a salted caramel flavor he will eat it. So to indulge my family's love of salted caramel I decided to use the last of the packaged caramels I had from my sponsored parties a couple of weeks back and make Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies.

Ruben Pizza from Backyard Pizza Huntington, WV

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 16 cookie bars. I did make numerous changes to the original recipe. First I used 2 1/4 cups of flour. I have never owned a 1/8 cup measure and didn't want to deal with a half of a 1/4. Most of the time I weigh my cookie ingredients, I did not for this recipe. I did not use heavy cream with the caramels. Instead I used 2 percent milk. I rarely have cream in the house and see no reason to buy a container for only 3 tablespoons. I heated the baking caramels and milk on the stove until they were fully melted and then followed the remainder of the recipe. When the cookies were done I let them cool for 30 minutes, then for an hour in the fridge. They were still hard to work with so I cut them, took them out of the pan and placed them in the freezer. This allowed the bars to be less gooey.

Last Heirloom Tomato of the Season (It freezes tomorrow night!)

I would make a few changes to this recipe. First, do not make it in a 9 inch pan. The cookies came out too high and had to be cut very small so the taste wasn't over whelming. I would suggest using a 13 by 9 inch pan. This way the cookies would be nice and thin, while still having the great salted caramel taste. I would also suggest that if you use baking caramel like I did to let them set in the freezer, the cookies were great after they had set in the freezer for about an hour. Overall, these cookies had a nice sweet/salty combination according to my kids and husband. I think with the few changes I suggested the cookies would be perfect and nice for a party since salted caramel is very in in the foodie community right now. Great for Thanksgiving or Christmas!

For the recipe go to Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

Recipe Type: Dessert

Summary:

A nice combination of salty and sweet, these Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies would be perfect for a party or to enjoy all by yourself!

Preparation Time: 0h, 15m

Cooking Time: 0h, 30m

Total Time: 0h, 45m

Yield: Serves 16

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

I love my youngest son. We went to the mall a couple of weeks back and my in-laws bought my sons new teddy bears. My oldest named his stuffed animal Mr. Fluffy (it is a cat), my youngest named his teddy bear Steve. That's right Steve. There is a story that makes it a little more logical. My two kids are currently obsessed with Minecraft and one of the characters name is Steve. However, Steve the teddy bear also has a definite back story and personality. My youngest has created a whole story about where Steve came from, what he's afraid of and he even draws pictures for Steve so he doesn't get lonely. When I asked him if Steve got lonely he told me "of course not, he's a teddy bear". A teddy bear named Steve with a back story. I wish that I had half the imagination and simple hilarity of a 4-year-old, I think all adults could use a little more of it.

Today's recipe came about from the groans of my oldest having to eat gluten free bread. While I have to eat gluten free, my kids luckily have not inherited any of my problems. Most of the time they are great about eating gluten free foods, but every once in a while they rebel. This was one of those weeks. So I promised that I would bake my kids something sweet for breakfast made with wheat flour (I wear gloves and use separate bowls etc - I'm lucky that inhaling the flour does not bother me as long as I'm careful). I decided on a recipe for Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns from the Taste of Home website.

Ritter Park Rose Garden Fountain

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 3 hours of total time, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 12 servings. I did make a few changes to the original recipe. First, I was out of pecans so I made half the batch with walnuts and half without. Second, I had caramels leftover from a sponsored party so instead of making the caramel sauce I melted 14 caramels and 1/4 cup of 2 percent milk and poured it into the pan. Since the caramels harden a little more than cream and brown sugar I heated the buns in the microwave for 10 seconds before serving the next day. The dough rose beautifully and it was very easy to work with.

Mushroom at Rotary Park Huntington, WV

These sticky buns were very popular with my two boys. My mother-in-law tried one when they were a couple of days old and she said that they were still very good reheated in the microwave. The dough was very easy to work with and rose even though my kitchen was on the cooler side. They had risen far above the top of the pan after an hour rise and made perfect large buns. Definitely a recipe I would use again with pecans, almonds, or hazelnuts.

For the recipe go to Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns.

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

Recipe Type: Breakfast

Summary:

A delicious pecan sticky bun recipe using wrapped caramels. The dough is easy to work with and rises easily.

Preparation Time: 2h, 30m

Cooking Time: 0h, 30m

Total Time: 3h, 0m

Yield: Serves 12