Salty Caramel Oat Bars
You’re gonna love me for these bars. Like be in love with me forever and name your children after me.
Sometimes things are just THAT good. Like Diet Dr. Pepper and Twizzlers. Just good. The end.
Obviously if you have been reading this blog for any length of time you know how I love my bars. AND you know how I love my salty/sweet. Sorry to be so predictable.
I won’t bore you with a lot of words today because it’s getting late and I haven’t made dinner, started laundry or painted my nails.
I have, however, checked Pinterest 3,457 times, gone to hell (Pilates class) and made a fun cocktail for my other site.
ANNND I still have to pack for a trip that I am going on tomorrow with some of the coolest girls in all the land, like her and her and her aaannd her. AND her and her and her and her! It’s all to celebrate our friend Georgia’s new book. So you see, I have lots of things I should be doing, which means I should stop talking now.
Salty Caramel Oat Bars.
OK, here’s what you do…
Mix up the usual suspects in your stand mixer…butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla…
Mix in some newbies, crushed pretzels, oats and, of course, flour…
Press that yumminess into a jelly roll pan lined with foil. You need to save about a cup of the mix for later.
Now melt in a saucepan some caramels and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Yes, it’s true.
While it’s melting chop up some cashews.
When your caramel is melted pour that over your base, then sprinkle your cashews, some milk chips and the remainder of the oat mixture…
Then bake it up. I am loving my new Frigidaire Gallery Double Oven. The top and bottom ovens are the same size, so you aren’t limited to what you can make.
When they’re done you have to let them cool. But since you lined the pan, they are easy to remove and cut. This is really an awesome recipe for the holidays because this recipe makes a TON of bars! You can get up to 60, depending on the size you cut them!
Description
makes approx 60 bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cups finely crushed pretzels
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk, minus 1/2 cup)
- 1 (11oz) bag of caramels, unwrapped
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
- 1 cup chopped cashews
- 1 tsp coarse sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°
- Line a 15x10x1 inch pan with foil
- With your electric mixer beat butter and sugars together. Add eggs and vanilla until incorporated.
- On low speed add in your pretzels and flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly mix in your oats.
- Set aside 1 cup of your batter.
- Press remaining batter into prepared pan.
- In medium saucepan combine your caramels and sweetened condensed milk over medium heat until caramels are melted and mixture is smooth.
- Pour caramel on oat batter. Sprinkle the cashews, chocolate chips and remaining oat batter on top.
- Sprinkle your coarse sea salt evenly over top.
- Bake for 20-2 minutes until top starts to golden.
- Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.
- When cool lift bars from pan with foil and cut.
You Might Also Like These Recipes:
THE COOKIES AND CUPS COOKBOOK: ALWAYS EAT DESSERT FIRST
The Cookies & Cups Cookbook is full of 125+ recipes that remind you to Always Eat Dessert First! My website has always been dedicated to the very best sweet treats with an occasional family friendly meal sprinkled in and my book is everything you have grown to love about my site and more.
You can now order a copy of The Cookies & Cups Cookbook!
Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Books-A-Million | Indie Bound | Simon&Schuster | Amazon Kindle | Nook by B&N | iBooks | Google play
If I have another child I will indeed name her after you. 🙂
Le yum.
salty + sweet..and anything that has to do w/ caramel or bars or chocolate..I am all about it.
These look awesome!
Oh I love your oven, I would kill for that. Okay maybe not kill, but hurt someone real good;p And those bars look so good, I would probably only get like 20 out of them, you know, large bars are better.
you got it – our baby boy in the oven is named after you now 🙂 well, at least he’s named after these bars 🙂
Holy baked bars of wonderfulness! These look to.die.for. YUM!
Yes ma’am! Can I place an order?
I’ll take the entire tray and a spoon – – actually forget the spoon, I don’t want any extra dishes to do. Ill just take the tray and a couple napkins (you know, since im classy and all that good stuff)
Ok, I do adore you for these, but really I already did! Love:-)
I love bars too, especially the ones you make! You are one busy gal, Shelly!
60 bars would be perfect for me right now 😀
Kind of awkward but…I was totally already going to name a child after you. Maybe now I’ll name two? Or one of my siblings’ future children?
Have fun on your trip!
I just started to drool when looking at another blog’s salted caramel cookies… and now this?!!! I think the world is telling me that I need to make something with salted caramels! These bars look insane!
These look great! I love chocolate and caramel.
Oh. My. Goodness. Yes. Please. Yum. Must have these. I really must!
I am drooling over here! These look amazing!
OH MY GAWD!
I think I would be at risk of eating the WHOLE batch if I made this. Why does it look so good? Why? You tempt me! Far out. This is incredible.
Will you marry me? I’m pretty sure these are exactly what I have been looking for all my life! YUM!
These bars rock my world!
It is like you made them just for me! No? Well, they look delicious!
Every day you are a new brand of awesome. P.S. If you make these for me I’ll do the dishes!
I love this recipe.
These look really awesome. I, too, am a lover of sweet and salty. I also happen to be a lover of sweetened condensed milk.
You had me at helloi…
These look so yummy, but for me, I have to omit the nuts. I know my grandkids will love these tho.
Thank U 4 sharing the recipe
ColleenB.
Um….yes please can have some!!!!! These look spectacularly (not sure if that’s even a word.) ooey , gooey and re sort of kinda yummy…and I like how they are heart healthy with the oats and all!!!
This is in reference to my above comment. Obviously I should re-read my comments before I post…sorry I’ve been away from the computer for a bit and it seems I forgot how to type, spell, etc 🙂
I am totally gonna rename my kids Awesome after you. Seriously that must be your real name because the stuff you come up with is well AWESOME!
Oh my lordy!!! These look heavenly!!!
I love the sound of this recipe but … we don’t have the same type of pretzels here in Australia as you do in the US. Ours are small and hard … not soft and doughy like yours are over there. What can I use in place of the pretzels to give the same result?
With thanks, Bern
Wow. I might just have to whip up a batch of these myself.
These look INCREDIBLE! I would love some right now :). Great job!
Mmmmm… I’ve just spent far too long going through your recipes looking at goodies! They all look delicious, and I have a list ready to try out. I can confidently say my husband will forever be grateful. My butt, which already feels bigger, not so much. 😉
I DO NOT APPRECIATE IDEAS LIKE THIS! Sheesh! It’ like a Take 5 bar meets chcolate chip cookies. CRAZYTOWN. AND I do not appreciate you boasting about your fancy-schmancy double oven. Do you by any chance have a direct line to Santa for one of those? Or my husband? 😉 xo
Oh my goodness, these look fabulous! They’d be perfect for a cookie exchange since they make such a big batch. YUM! 😀
besides the fact that you are super cool, it’s recipes like this that make me LOVE you…
YUM! I wanted to let you know that I featured this on my “What I Bookmarked This Week” post – stop by and see!
You’re absolutely right….I DO love you for these bars! 🙂
I definitely will love you for these; I already did love you, though:)
Right now I’m all about bars! These are INCREDIBLE!!! I seriously can taste them in my mind right now!
Amazing!!! I wish I had some of these to eat right now!
These look awesome!! I’d probably just sub more pretzels for the cashews since I’m allergic, but yeah…these are definitely on my list to make!
I made them tonight, and while mine are not nearly as pretty they taste AMAZING! Thanks so much for the recipe! My husband and I went back for seconds. Okay, there could have been thirds involved…. And for the nice lady in Australia, these are not soft chewy pretzels that are used. It’s the hard crunchy kind. The ones you describe should be fine if you chop them up. And I can’t recommend the recipe enough! Yum!
These were fabulous!! I just HAD to make them after seeing them!!
sound amazing. Can’t wait to try this out
I made these last night! Yum! A bit more time consuming that my usual cookies/bars, but totally worth it. I would suggest either not spreading the caramel all the way to the edges, or using a bigger/heavier foil to line the pan. I have a cheapie brand of foil and it kept tearing as I tried to cut the bars. Minor complication. And note that it takes quite a while for these to cool. Thanks for the recipe!
Yum! Must try ASAP!!
I want to make these for Christmas. I was looking over the recipe and the : flour…. I see it is 1 1/2 ???? Cups? Tablespoons? Teaspoons?
Just wondering… before I rename my oldest child 😉
HAHA! Yes, cups! I updated the recipe 🙂
I made these today! They’re still in the oven, but I cannot WAIT to try them…thank you for posting this!
Thanks… Now my daughter can’t figure out why I’m calling her “Shelly”
Strange looks… “Daddy!” 😉
Take Care….
I’ve got a Cinna-Bon cinnamon roll killer.
Family begs me to make these.
Paul
oooh those sound great!
It doesn’t get any better than this!
these looked wonderful, so I made them and followed the recipe EXACTLY. I now have aluminum foil stuck on this entire pan, what a stinking lousy mess. thanks for nothing
Well, I honestly don’t know how foil would stick you your pan, unless the caramel seeped through? Possibly you didn’t cover your pan well enough? Because I have never heard of caramel penetrating foil 🙂
These are amazing!!! My family loved them. I plan to make more for valentine’s day. thank you
They are my husbands favorites too!
these look so very scrumptious.
Beyond delish! Shared the recipe on my FB wall. Thank you 🙂
I can’t believe how good these are. Instead of cashews I used toasted walnuts. Wow, they are incredible! Thanks for posting 🙂
What a super website! to a lot info and a extremely short lifestyle hehehehe retain it up, good deliver the results
I have to tell you that I made these last year during the holidays, then hid them in the garage so I wouldn’t eat them all. I sent them to work with my husband, and he ate one in his pickup, then declined to take them into the building. 🙂 So when they had to do an all-nighter to finish a big project, I put several into a container for him to take along. When I showed up the next morning, one of the guys requested more of them, so I brought the rest of the pan, and he immediately commandeered two or three of them. I’ll definitely be making these again, preferably when I can share them.
That’s hilarious! They do make a huge amount 🙂
I know this post is old but I just wanted to tell you that you were right….I love you forever for this bar and if I was having more kids I would totally name one after you! I found the recipe via pinterest and the rest is history. BEST cookie bar EVER! I get so many compliments on them when I make them too! So many that I decided to blog on it myself and link back to you! Thank you!! <3
hahah! I need to make those again!
I’ve made these countless times…they’ve added countless pounds. Shame on me for not having enough self control! They are amazing!
How many caramels do you use?
1, 11 oz bag. I think when I updates my recipe format I must have unknowingly deleted the caramels in the recipe! Thanks for the catch!
Following you on Pinterest.
These are amazing….. made them twice for my church and they cannot get enough of them. First to disappear from the cookie plate.
These were uh.ma.zing. So as it turns out, i DO love you for this recipe. And for your website in general. Also, our local gym is pretty happy about the find.
Does it matter if you use old fashioned or quick cooking oats?
Not really, no 🙂