Chocolate Caramel Cookie Bars

No Fresh From The Oven challenge this month I am afraid, it completely slipped my mind! Oops. We've had a really horrific week here, two dear souls have now departed this world and now Sis-in-Law is in hospital with a broken ankle in three places courtesy of one of Mister Mack's disappearing acts (remember him? The cute adorable faced Westie ... butter wouldn't melt?...Yes, that's the one!) as he passed by a bog. Mack only went home last night and now he is already back with us, under threat of some very good behaviour or else!

We were in some need of cheering up and in need of some goodies to take on tomorrow's hospital visit and this cookie bar ticked all the boxes.

Chocolate Caramel Cookie Bars

For the Crust

130g unsalted butter, room temp, plus more for parchment

55g brown sugar

240g plain flour

1/4 tsp table salt

For the Chocolate Caramel

400g milk chocolate, chopped

350g granulated sugar

55ml water

85g unsalted butter

235ml double cream

1/2 tsp table salt

1 tbsp sea salt, preferably fleur de sel

Preheat the oven to 180C. Make the crust; line a 9" square baking pan with parchment, leaving an overhang on all sides, butter parchment, excluding over hang. Beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 mins. Add flour and table salt and beat until just combined.

Press dough evenly into pan and bake until lightly browned, about 30 mins (mine was probably done at about 15 to 20 mins though)

Make the chocolate caramel; place chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat granulated sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, washing sides of pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent sugar crystals from forming, until amber, 10 to 12 mins (try 25 mins in my case and even then I was being optimistic about the shade of amber!). Remove from heat. Add butter, cream and table salt. Bring to a boil, stirring until smooth. Pour over chocolate. Let stand for 2 mins. Stir to combine and let stand until cool, about 10 mins.

Pour mixture over crust. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Run a knife around edges. Lift parchment to remove whole bar from tin. Sprinkle with sea salt. Trim edges and cut into 16 bars. Bars can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Makes 16 bars

Cookie Of The Day

I converted the recipe into grams but if you would prefer the cups and ounces version then it can be found on Martha's site using the link above. I used a larger pan so I got a lot more slices out of it, about 22 in total. Hubby prefers his without the sea salt but I think the salt adds a nice depth of flavour to the caramel and chocolate. This is the first time I've ever made caramel, it was scary but a lot of fun as well so I'll be looking out a few more caramel recipes to make for Christmas.

Now. Hubby's laptop is still in the laptop hospital. So my post are still infrequent but I promise just as soon as laptops and life in general returns to normal that this blog will positively over flow with yummy offerings (no pressure there!) and I will be able to visit all my fave blogs every time there is a new post, thank you for hanging in with me thus far ... and here's to a better week just a round the corner ;0)