Adult Candy Bars (aka Salted Caramel Cookie Bars)

Salted caramel is all the rage. Everyone is eating it as a cupcake, a sauce on something and I just received a candle that is salted caramel scented. That candle sat on my desk all of last week burning and making me hungry. All I wanted to eat were Twix bars and those tiny Brach's caramel squares. By end of the week I had enough of the smelling but not eating caramel, and I decided a Twix Bar was not going to cut it-the caramel had to be salted. A bunch of research led me to chocolate salted caramel cookie bars, which everyone said were grown up Twix bars. The recipe as is was fine, but I decided it needed some tweaking. The results have been hugely successful and several people have asked for the recipe. Here you go... Cookie Layer 2 sticks room temp unsalted butter 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1 Tbl vanilla extract 1/2 tea salt 2 cups flour Caramel Layer 10 oz carmel candies-unwrap, use your kitchen shears to cut up 2-3 Tbl heavy cream Chocolate Layer 10 oz dark chocolate chips 1 cup heavy cream Decent quality flakey salt of your choosing Preheat your oven to 325, generously grease your 13x9 glass baking dish. Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla and salt, then add flour and mix to combine. Press this into bottom of prepared dish and dock the dough-meaning-pierce dough with a fork all over to keep it from bubbling up. Bake this for up to 35 minutes until it is set and begins to get golden brown. Set aside to cool. Once cooled slightly turn it out onto a baking sheet/cutting board lined with foil. Fold the edges of the foil up around the cookie to make a lip-this will help keep caramel goodness from oozing off the top of the cookie. Put your caramels and 2 tbl heavy cream into small sauce pan and heat over low heat, if you have chopped them up well with your scissors they should begin to melt quickly-keep stirring. If it isn't getting that cream caramel sauce thickness add a touch more cream. Once completely melted pour over the cookie crust. Let this set up for a few minutes before adding the hot chocolately layer-this will help keep the layers neat and distinct. Heat your 1 cup of cream in a pot, stir in the chips, remove from heat and stir til the chips melt. You can jazz this up with a tablespoon of your favorite extract or liquer. Once completely smooth pour onto the caramel layer. Immediately sprinkle with salt-to your taste-I used less. I also bought a decent salt for this in a grocery store. You don't need to buy a $30 salt that you may never use again, but don't go with kosher or table salt either. Heat your knive with hot water and cut into bars-keep the knife hot and clean for easier and cleaner cuts. It is hard to cut into but completely worth the effort.