I don’t often make desserts, but yesterday I was craving something sweet. I had some caramels leftover from my Christmas baking stash that I hadn’t used so I came up with these Chocolate Caramel Oat Bars. An oatmeal crust layered with gooey caramel, chocolate and then topped with more oatmeal topping adorned with pecans. A pretty good little sweet treat if you are in the mood.
I almost didn’t post these as I thought I should make them one more time to perfect the crust. I think it needed a bit more butter. I’ve altered the recipe to include a few more tbsp of butter, which is what I would do if I made them again. The boys devoured almost the whole tray of these by the end of the day, encouraging me that perhaps they were worthy of a post.
These need to sit for an hour after coming out of the oven before you slice them up so that the caramel has a chance to cool down a little. Slice them up into bars and serve with a scoop of ice cream if you like.
Sweet, simple, and delicious.
One of the biggest tasks in making these is unwrapping all of the little caramels (I used the Kraft Caramels). If you have children – this would be a great job to recruit them for – as long as they don’t eat them all while they are unwrapping.
The weather has turned a bit gloomy here in Calgary the last couple of days. I find during this Coronavirus quarantine, it makes things a little more difficult when the weather is crappy. Hopefully, the sunshine will come back again soon so that we can at least enjoy the outdoors a bit more. I find that we are all getting a bit stir crazy at this point. This is such a long haul for the kids to endure away from their friends, especially at the ages where socializing is so important. I really cannot wait until this is all over and the kids can be back to normal again, and pray that school will resume in September.
On a positive note, we all have a lot more free time on our hands, and that has been nice to tinker in the kitchen and around the yard and house. But honestly, I think I would prefer to be busy again, I think we all would.
I need to add some more desserts to this blog. Although, I have some older recipes up here that are really great – The Best Pumpkin Muffins and this Chocolate Torte with Frangelico, Rasberries and Whipped Cream or this Zander’s Birthday Feast! Pavlova with Whipped Cream and Fruitare some of our favourites.
Chocolate Caramel Oat Bars
Ingredients
Oatmeal Crust/Topping
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup oats
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup butter (plus a little more) 3 extra tbsp approx
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
For the Caramel and Filling
- 50 whole kraft caramels, unwrapped
- 1/4 cup milk or cream
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 cups milk chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Mix together the flour, oats, cinnamon, salt, and brown sugar.
- Melt about 1 cup plus 2 tbsp extra of butter, add vanilla to melted butter.
- Pour the butter mixture into the flour/oat mixture and stir well.
- Take 3/4 of the mixture and press down on a 9 x 12 dish prepared with parchment paper.
- Bake the crust for 8-10 minutes
- In a large microwave safe bowl, put your caramels, cream and 2 tbsp of butter.
- Melt the caramel mixture in the microwave for about 3 minutes total removing at 1 minute intervals to stir, until it is melted and a smooth mixture.
- On the crust layer your chocolate chips.
- Pour your caramel mixture over the chocolate chips.
- With the remaining oat mixture, stir in your pecans and another tbsp of softened butter. Mix together with your hands into a crumb type mixture. Lay on top of your caramel.
- Place back in the oven for another 12-14 minutes until set.
- Remove from oven and let sit 1 hour before slicing and serving.
