Another Benefit from Our World Tour . . .

One the things I treasure most about our travels is the friendships we have made over the years.  At every show, there are faces that I have to see before the weekend is complete.  Some of them are vendors, some are customers, and some help us set up and tear down the booth and work in it during the show.  I enjoy the conversations and getting to know more about your families and the local culture.  And the support and encouragement that many of you have shown my mom during her fight with cancer is simply overwhelming.

Today’s entry is another benefit from our travels.  At the Indianapolis show earlier this month, our friends Kaaren Sadtler and Ann Hathaway made their annual appearance to help us with set up and tear down.  And Kaaren brought goodies – Caramel Chip Bars.  They are fantastic – she was kind enough to share the recipe and I made them and took pictures last week.

Here’s what you’ll need (I’ll print the whole recipe at the end of this post so you won’t have to print out all of the pictures):

1/2 cup Butter
32 Kraft Caramels (side note – has anyone else noticed that these things are half the size they were years ago?)
14 oz. Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 Pkg. Yellow Cake Mix, dry
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 Eggs
2 Cups Miniature Chocolate Chips
1 Cup Vanilla or White Chips
3 Heath Candy Bars, 1.4 oz. each, chopped

I made a few changes to this – I like milk chocolate chips and those don’t come in miniature.  And I like fewer chips in my cookies, so I used 1 cup of milk chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of white chips.  I only used two Heath bars – but I was told that next time I need to stick with three to give the finished product a little more “crunch”.  And I always use margarine instead of butter and Egg Beaters instead of eggs.

 

You’ll want something in the background to keep you occupied while you’re making these bars (in my case, it was the NCAA basketball tournament on my computer) – from start to putting the finished product into the refrigerator to cool, this took almost 3½ hours.  And it goes in and out of the oven three times!

Here we go . . .

Line a 9” x 13” pan with aluminum foil and grease; set aside.

Combine the butter, caramels and condensed milk in a microwave safe bowl and microwave, stirring at intervals, until smooth when stirred.  Cool in refrigerator while working on other ingredients.

In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix, oil and eggs; mix well.

Chop the Heath Bars – I broke them up in a Ziploc bag instead of using a chopper, but next time I’ll just buy the Heath Bar Pieces at the grocery.

Stir in chips and candy bar (dough will be stiff).

Press 2/3 of the mixture into baking pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

Pour caramel mixture over the crust and spread to the edges (getting to lick the spoon or knife after this is an added bonus)

Drop remaining dough by spoonfuls onto caramel layer.

The edges of this recipe tend to get dark and unattractive before the middle gets done – so trim the edges of the pan with foil.

Bake 15 minutes and then remove foil.

Then bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown.  (I baked mine 14 minutes and it was a little too crumbly for my tastes – I will cut this back to 10-11 minutes next time)

Cool for 10 minutes – then run a knife around the edge of the pan.  Cool for 40 minutes longer, then cover and refrigerate for at least one hour or until serving. 

It was 10:20 when I put mine into the refrigerator, and I intended to go to bed and see how it tasted in the morning – at exactly 11:20, Ryan came downstairs and demanded that we cut into it!

And I suggest you cut this into small pieces – it’s really rich!  Enjoy!

 

Caramel Chip Bars (Kaaren Sadtler)

1/2 cup Butter
32 Kraft Caramels
14 oz. Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 Pkg. Yellow Cake Mix, dry
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 Eggs
2 Cups Miniature Chocolate Chips
1 Cup Vanilla or White Chips
3 Heath Candy Bars, 1.4 oz. each, chopped

Line a 9” x 13” pan with aluminum foil and grease; set aside.

Combine the butter, caramels and condensed milk in a microwave safe bowl and microwave, stirring at intervals, until smooth when stirred.  Cool in refrigerator while working on other ingredients.

In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix, oil and eggs; mix well.

Stir in chips and chopped candy bars (dough will be stiff).

Press 2/3 of the mixture into baking pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

Pour caramel mixture over the crust and spread to the edges.

Drop remaining dough by spoonfuls onto caramel layer.

The edges of this recipe tend to get dark and unattractive before the middle gets done – so trim the edges of the pan with foil.

Bake 15 minutes and then remove foil.

Then bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

Cool for 10 minutes – then run a knife around the edge of the pan.  Cool for 40 minutes longer, then cover and refrigerate for at least one hour or until serving.