Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Bars
A buttery cookie bar full of chocolate chunks and caramel sprinkled with sea salt is always the perfect treat. Top with vanilla ice cream while they are warm for a decadent dessert.
Why I love these cookie bars so much
I originally had these bars at book club sans chocolate chunks. They were pretty impressive. However, I knew that with chocolate, they would be flipping’ awe-sssSUM! You know that moment when you take a bite of something, and it’s so good, you need to pause, close your eyes, and thank the Lord above for taste buds? Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ bout with these salted caramel chocolate chunk bars; they’re going to make your world go all slow-mo. Yes, slow motion, because 1 pound of butter 40-ish caramel candies and chocolate chunk pieces. You do the math. Ok I’ll do the math. I DID the math and it equalled perfectly delectable scrumptious yumminess! Making sure I answered the why question above; I love these cookies because they are decadent, and a little fussy (not hard) and did I say melt in your mouth? These bars take a few steps, they aren’t as easy as these bars, but believe me the steps are worth it!
Gather these ingredients
How to make Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Bars
** How-to photos coming soon.
What do you see here? School has been kicking every booty in this house. Between college essays being finished off, a tough load of classes by all, plus other various sports, another child taking drivers training, and scads of fall yard work to be done, there hasn’t been too much time for fun which as a mom of three teens I want them to have fun, but not too much if ya know what I mean. I do think a sweet treat is always a good spirit lifter. A delicious little nibble and a glass of milk to get them through it!
This recipe was adapted from this recipe from the blog Cookies and Cups.
Do you ever bake your family a special treat to help get them through a particularly hard or busy week? What’s their favorite?
XO, Sheila
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Bars
Equipment
- stand mixer with paddle attachement
- 9×13 inch baking pan
Ingredients
- 2 cups butter 1 pound, room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 4 cups flour
- 14 ounce bag caramel candy cubes unwrapped (approximately 50 candies)
- 1/3 cup half & half
- 1/2 tbsp sea salt
- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks I used Nestle brand
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and spray a 9×13 baking pan lightly with cooking spray.
- Place butter and sugars in mixer, beat until creamed. Scrape down sides of mixing bowl and beat another minute. Add vanilla and beat another 30 seconds. Gradually add flour a half cup at a time
- Take one-third of the dough and press into the bottom of pan. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes. Place remainder of the dough in the refrigerator. (this will help it get crumbly)
- Unwrap caramels and place them in a medium-sized glass bowl pour half and half over caramels, place in microwave and gradually melt on high at 30 second intervals stirring in between each until caramels are melted and smooth. This step takes about 3 minutes.
- Remove bottom crust from oven pour caramel over crust and spread evenly with spatula, sprinkle sea salt evenly over caramel. Remove dough from refrigerator, crumble half of the dough over caramel. Sprinkle chocolate chunks evenly over bars, as well as the remainder of the dough.
- Return bars to oven and bake an additional 30-40 minutes or until bars just start to get a little brown on top.
- Place pan on a cooling rack allow to cool for 1 hour before cutting into squares.
Third pan today!! I didn’t have quite the amount of caramel bits so I added some ice cream topping!! I had wondered how that would work and now I know!! Today’s batch was for a friends birthday so I lined the pan with parchment and just lifted the whole thing out and gave it to her in one big piece. They were still warmish and I didn’t want to cut into them. The cookie exchange was fun even though I over cooked the bars a bit. I used a stoneware pan and they cooked faster than I expected in it. The caramel was a bit chewy on the edges. I had to eat that part, to protect the others:) Thanks for telling me about the caramel topping! I think these bars may be a regular around here even though they aren’t the cheapest treat! Merry Christmas to you and yours too!!!!
Made them once and I’m making them again! I added toasted pecans and they’ll be going in there again. They are very hard to stay out of!!! This time instead of eating most of the pan myself, I’m taking them to a cookie exchange. Instead of unwrapping 50 caramel pieces, I used caramel bits that are just right for melting, no unwrapping needed.
Caramel bits! So much easier, thanks for the tip. I actually could not find caramels so I used caramel ice cream topping, they are a little bit gooier (spelling?) than usual but it worked! Enjoy your cookie exchange and Merry Christmas! XO Sheila
Wow, all gooey and caramelly. These would be good for every holiday – saints or sinners 🙂