Oh I am so excited to share this recipe for salted caramel bars with you. They are out of this world! Salted caramel is poured between to layers of shortbread dough and baked until perfectly chewy and slightly crunchy. Talk about addicting and downright delicious!!

I just can’t with these. I am so obsessed it’s not even funny. I love salted caramel. I mean, who doesn’t? It’s definitely the “in” flavor right now, especially for ice cream and I totally get why. The salty and sweet combo is undeniably delicious. 

So…this is why I made a salted caramel bar because I just had to. It was the right thing to do at this very moment. 

This recipe is similar to the blackberry shortbread bars on my blog and I am so happy about it. How amazing to use a similar recipe for a completely different dessert! I don’t mind at all. A good base recipe can be the key to unlocking a whole lot of goodness in my book. 

These are salty, sweet, chewy and addicting. So basically…everything you need in a dessert.

I usually have a jar of salted caramel in my pantry because I crave it all the time. A simple spoonful over ice cream changes everything. Any salted caramel will do for this recipe. If you can’t find it, you can add some salt to a jar of regular caramel to your liking to get that saltiness we all love and crave.

I talk about this in the recipe below, but you can’t really screw these up. If they’re under baked or over baked, they are delicious. I’ve done both. I’ve baked them at the wrong temperature and I’ve actually baked them with tinfoil on top on accident (don’t do that!), but if you do, simply take it off and continue to bake until they are done.

I digress. Anyways…go make these. NOW!  And share them with everyone you know because it will bring them pure joy.

Thanks for listening. 🙂

Pin this recipe on Pinterest by clicking the image below!

Yield: 20-30 depending on how you cut the bars

Salted Caramel Bars

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a sweet and salty dessert bar - salted caramel is poured between two layers of shortbread dough and baked until perfectly chewy and slightly crunchy.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ¾ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• ¾ cup granulated white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup almond flour or very finely ground almonds
• 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 1½ cups salted caramel (18 ounce jar)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13 baking pan with parchment paper, set aside.
2. Cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in a mixer or with a hand held mixer for 2 minutes then add vanilla and mix.
3. With mixer on low-speed, gradually add the flour, salt and almond flour (or ground almonds) until a dough forms together. You may need to scrape the bottom of the bowl to help the dough come together. Press a little over half of the dough into your prepared pan. If you need more, don't be afraid to use more to make sure the bottom of the pan is evenly covered. Place the rest of the dough in the refrigerator.
4. Bake for 25 minutes. The crust shouldn't be too brown, slightly browned is fine, though.
5. Remove from oven and reduce heat to 325 degrees.
6. Next, pour salted caramel over the top, spreading evenly. Finally, crumble the rest of the dough on top (don't worry about it being perfect) and place back in the oven for an additional 25-30 minutes. You can't really mess these up - bake time on these doesn't effect much other than the bars beeing gooey or a little more firm. I have found like I like to bake them long enough so the crust is crunchy (which is why I bake at a higher tempeature at first), but the top is chewy so I tend to keep them in for 30 minutes, but check yours at 25 in case your oven is warmer than mine.
7. Sprinkle the top with more salt if desired and let cool before cutting.

Notes

These can be frozen for up to 3 months. They taste great warm or cold. To keep fresh, keep in refrigerator for 5 days.