Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Bars

Craving sweets? These sweet and slightly salty bars will leave you craving for more. After eating one bar.. suddenly you'll go through two or three.. or maybe even 4 (yes they're THAT good)

I've been meaning to make bars for a while, but I really wanted to do something a little different. These bars are layered with love, baked, then after cooling, they're drizzled with caramel sauce and topped with flaked salt.

Recipe

Ingredients:

Crust:

- 1 cup of ap flour

- 1 stick salted butter, not melted, cut into cubes

- 1 tbsp cornstarch

- 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Filling:

- 1 stick salted butter (room temp)

- 1 cup of dark brown sugar

- 1 tbsp vanilla extract

- 1 cup chopped walnuts

- 1/2 cup chocolate chips

- 1/3 cup heavy cream

- pinch of cinnamon and salt

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350. Get a small square baking dish (8x8 or 9x9 is fine), line it with parchment paper so it's an easy clean up.

2. Make your crust! Get a bowl and mix all crust ingredients. I had disposable gloves and used my hands to mix. I've made scones before, so decided to use the same method as I would in scones so the crust would turn out crispy and perfectly flaky. With scones you freeze then grate the butter. Instead of grating the butter, I just cut it up into small cubes. You want to squeeze the butter and dry mixture with your hands until it's mixed. You want a beautiful crumb like consistency. (If butter is too hard it's not going to mix right)

3. Spray the parchment paper with cooking oil spray. Put the crust mix on the bottom of the pan. Make sure you form it into a square. For me, it didn't fit the whole pan, I just made sure it was in a square shape. I used my hands to push the mixture down and then to form it into an even square.

4. Make your filling! Get a microwavable bowl and melt butter, vanilla extract, brown sugar, and heavy cream for 30 seconds-1minute. Then, add a pinch of salt and cinnamon powder. **Save some to top bars with after they're done** Mix it well, then top the crust with the filling! Next, spread walnuts and chocolate chips evenly over filling.

5. Bake at 350 or 30-35 minutes. It might be pretty fragile, so after it's done cooling, push the sides together to pack it. Then, let it sit overnight so it could harden. Put it in a ziplock bag and let it hang there over night.

6. Take them out of the ziplock and cut into squares. Top the bars with flaked salt and reserved caramel mixture.

Careful! These bars are addicting! Proceed with caution :)