I saw Giada make these bars a few weeks ago on Food Network and I automatically purchased all the ingredients needed during my next trip to the store. And that should tell you something about how good they looked-- the ingredients weren't even listed on my shopping list (which I try to stick to pretty close) and they ended up in my shopping cart all the same :)
So the ingredients have been staring at me every time I open my pantry door, begging me to use them. And finally, after two weeks, I found an excuse to make these delicious bars! I mean, I shouldn't always need an excuse to make myself a treat, right? And, I'll admit, there are several occasions where I end up just making treats for myself. However, I have found that if I have somewhere to take the treat, I can still try it, freeze a few and then ship the rest off to other people's hips ;)
These treats were made special for my fabulous MOPs group. It was our last week this week until we start up again in September (with all new groups :( ) and I love to make treats for these ladies! The original recipe states that it will serve 6-8 people. 6-8 people?? I ended up cutting them much smaller then the recipe suggested because they turned out so incredibly rich that you could only eat a small amount in one sitting. So I froze two rows, packed up about 40 to go to my MOPs meeting and sent about 20 in to work with Alex.
All in all, the recipe was pretty simple but it took a little bit of time to complete. There were three basic steps: make a graham cracker crust, make homemade caramel, and then melt some chocolate chips with a little heavy cream.
I have never made homemade caramel before but I am going to make it again really soon! All you need to make caramel is cream, brown sugar, butter, a saucepan and a candy thermometer. You stir all the ingredients together until the mixture is smooth and then let it boil until the temperature reaches 240 degrees. The end product is a luxuriously smooth and creamy caramel that is so silky and delicious! I think next time I will just poor it right onto a piece of parchment paper and cut it into squares. Or maybe I will just eat it right out of the pan with a spoon ;)
Some suggestions I have if you feel like giving this recipe a try:
1) Some of the reviewers of the recipe said the 1 1/2 sticks of butter called for in the crust was way, way too much butter. One reviewer suggested that 6 Tbl. was plenty so that is what I tried. My crust ended up being slightly more crumbly then I would have liked it so next time I would increase the amount to probably 1 stick or 8 Tbl.
- another reviewer suggested making the crust out of shortbread (genius! a homemade twix bar!! this will definitely be on my treat list soon!)
2) The chocolate layer on top is quite rich. I even used 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chips because I ran out of semi-sweet chips but I think that I would do less than 2 cups total chocolate chips next time and do half milk, half semi-sweet.
3) I also didn't do the sea salt on top of the chocolate because I didn't have it. If you have it, try it and let me know what you think! I am sure it brings the overall taste to a whole new level :)
4) And finally, I am a sucker for peanut butter and chocolate in any form so I might try to find a way to sneak some peanut butter in here too! Mix in with the crust maybe or in with the chocolate layer-- yum... yum... ;)
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