Chocolate Caramel Cookie Bars

For Christmas this year, I got a couple of different baking ingredients. Since I am not a good housekeeper and my house is pretty messy, I sometimes just let things sit there and I forget what I have. I had gotten some mini sea salt caramels, covered in chocolate. They are about the size of two chocolate chips put together. They didn’t come with any recipes and a search of the web didn’t really help.

I made a turtle pie for Easter, and instead of using chocolate chips I used the mini sea salt caramels. I figured the pie had chocolate and caramel anyway. That pie turned out delicious, but unfortunately I didn’t get it photographed! Oh well. The chocolates are somewhat similar to mini Rolos, so I ended up search for recipes that used mini Rolos to figure out how to use the rest of my caramels. (Mini Rolos come in a bag, already unwrapped.)

I came across this recipe, which is basically an oatmeal bar cookie with the added caramels. The recipe is very straight-forward and comes together in just a couple of minutes. The caramels do get a little melted while baking, so there aren’t really distinct caramels, just a nice mixture of all of the flavors. The bars are very soft, which makes them easy to cut, too!

Chocolate Caramel Cookie Bars

1 cup butter, room temperature

1-1/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups oats

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup mini caramel filled chocolates

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray. 

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, and eggs. Beat on medium until smooth. Add the milk, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt and oats. Stir on low until the dough comes together. Add the chocolate chips and mini caramel filled chocolates and stir with a spatula until combined. Spread the dough evenly into the prepared pan. 

Bake for 24-28 minutes, until golden brown. The top of the bars may look wet in a couple of places, but look for the golden brown color. Allow to cool.

Remove the bars from the pan and peel away the foil. Cut into bars.

Recipe from Somewhat Simple