salted caramel

Oreo Millionaire Shortbread

/ Jodi / 25 Comments

Oreo Millionaire Shortbread.

WARNING – WARNING – WARNING!

This recipe is ONLY for the most serious chocolate and salted caramel lovers.

Others – please disregard!

One of our friends who we meet up with every Thursday on our John’s Bar date night had a birthday last week.

Friends’ birthdays are always a great excuse for me to bake and try something new.

So for our sweet friend, Donna, I made these amazingly decadent Oreo Millionaire Shortbread cookie bars.

O… M… G!

What could be more indulgent than an Oreo cookie crust layered with homemade salted caramel and then topped with rich, creamy chocolate and sprinkled with additional Oreo crumbs?!?!

I found a recipe at Baking a Mess, but the recipe was in British weights and measures and contained ingredients I was not familiar with (caster sugar and golden syrup).  I did a little research into converting grams to cups and substitutes for the ingredients I didn’t have, and came up with this recipe below.

There wasn’t one left Thursday night for Donna to take home.  She had generously shared, and they were all devoured.

This is a real treat, but be warned, it is absolutely decadent, so only make when you are absolutely sure you need a luxurious indulgence!

Oreo Millionaire Shortbread

Ingredients:

Base:

  • 1 1/2 packages (14.3 oz) Oreo cookies
  • 1/2/ cup butter
  • 2 Tbsp flour

Caramel:

  • 1 14-oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup (sticks) butter
  • 2 Tbsp Karo Syrup
  • 1 Tbsp molasses
  • 1 tsp flaked sea salt

Topping:

  • 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 cup reserved Oreo crumbs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a 9×9 square baking stone or pan with parchment paper.  Finely crush Oreo cookies into crumbs.    Reserve 1 cup.  Combine remaining crumbs with melted butter and flour in bowl.  Pour into parchment lined baking pan and pat firmly.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Allow to cool.

On medium-low heat, put the all of the caramel ingredients (except the sea salt flakes) in a heavy saucepan.  Allow to boil, reduce and thicken into a golden caramel sauce, stirring occasionally.  This takes about 30 minutes.  Stir in the sea salt flakes and pour on top of the Oreo base.  Refrigerate approximately 2 hours.

Melt chocolate chips in microwave for 1 minute.  Stir.  Melt an additional 30 seconds.  Stir.  Pour over caramel layer and spread to cover entire surface.  Sprinkle with reserved Oreo crumbs.  Refrigerate a few hours before removing from pan by lifting parchment paper.

Cut into 36 squares.

Enjoy!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

 

One Word Photo Challenge: Chocolate (Salted Caramel Brownie Bites!)

/ Jodi / 8 Comments

salted caramel chocolate brownie bites

Since we are on the subject of Salted Caramel and Chocolate….

We were – weren’t we?!??

I came across a new One Word Photo Challenge (by photographer Jennifer Nichole Wells) via my friend, Colleen, at Silver Threading (who shared some glorious chocolate-colored rocks from Glacier National Park) where the theme this week is “Chocolate.”

Well – – I took it quite literally 🙂 and had to share this glorious recipe for these super simple yet amazingly scrumptious little gems I made last year at Christmas time.

And we were talking about Christmas too – right?!??  🙂

I originally found this recipe on InsideBruCrewLife’s blog.

Salted Caramel Brownie Bites

You will need:

Prepare 1 box brownies according to package directions for fudge-like brownies – let cool.
Unwrap 35 Rolo Candies (or a few extra if you are going to pop a few in your mouth – which is extremely hard to resist!)
12 ounces milk chocolate (Nestle Chocolate chips or any kind you prefer)
Coarse Sea Salt
Directions:
  • Cut the brownies into 35 small squares.
  • Place a Rolo on each square.
  • Wrap the brownie around the Rolo forming a ball.
  • Place on waxed paper covered baking sheet, and refrigerate for about an hour.
  • Melt chocolate (in microwave is easiest).
  • Dip the brownie bites into the melted chocolate.
  • Place on waxed paper and sprinkle with sea salt.

People are going to go GaGa over them, so watch out!

Enjoy.

And though it’s not an award-winning photo, I’ll bet your mouth is watering – and you are definitely thinking CHOCOLATE!  🙂

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies

/ Jodi / 5 Comments

Who can resist Sea Salt Caramels mixed with Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks??!!??

And baked into a warm, crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside homemade cookie!

Sea Salt Caramel Royal Chocolate Chip Cookies Close

I saw these new yummy Brach’s Sea Salt Caramel Royals at the store recently and thought they might make a nice addition to my basic “almost famous” chocolate chip cookies for a little change up.

Sea Salt Caramel Royal Chocolate Chip Cookies Caramels

So I chopped up a bag of these amazing little bites of heaven and substituted them for half of the chocolate chunks in my cookies.  The only tricky thing about these is that the melted caramel makes the cookies a bit tricky to remove from you baking sheets (stones), so I recommend letting them cool almost completely on the sheet before removing.

salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies mix

Two thumbs up from the guys in the McKinney house (and if Mikey had an opposable thumb, he’d give one too).

Sea Salt Caramel Royal Chocolate Chip Cookies Plated with milk

Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Mix together:

1 lb softened butter (YEPPERS – you heard me right – I did say O N E   P O U N D – 4 sticks – 2 cups – – – don’t get too shook up – recipe makes A LOT!)
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1-1/2 cups white sugar
2-3 tsp vanilla (just pour some in)
4 eggs

Then add:

5 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Mix well, then fold in:

1 12-oz bag Nestle Semi Sweet Chocolate Chunks
1 10-oz bag Brach’s Sea Salt Caramel Royals, chopped

Chill for several hours.

Drop by heaping tablespoons on baking stone, and bake at 375 for 9-11 min.

Sea Salt Caramel Royal Chocolate Chip Cookies Plated

ENJOY!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Salted Caramel Black Walnut Brownies

/ Jodi / 5 Comments

br

We were going to a special event on Saturday (a wedding celebration for my brother, Jeff, and new Sis-in-Law, Terri 🙂 ), and I didn’t want to go empty-handed.  I had figured on taking the usual “Jodi’s Almost Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies” because the kiddos really love them.

But I wanted to make something else special and yummy for the occasion.  I was watching one of my cooking “heroes,” Ree Drumond aka The Pioneer Woman, in the morning and was inspired by her Crazy Brownie recipe.

So I checked the baking shelf (which needed cleaning out desperately – so it led to that!)  Think I have enough stuff???!!

baking shelf

And set out to make my own brownies.  I used some of her tricks, including a box of Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake for the base to which I added 1/3 of a cup of evaporated milk and a stick of melted butter.

I pressed about 2/3 of that into the bottom of my round baking dish.  (I’ve always loved to bake my brownies in a round dish – my BFF Jill got me started on that years ago I think….)

br4

Then I had all of these caramels in a Ziploc bag ALREADY unwrapped from some other baking project from who knows when, so I figured I would melt them with the rest of the evaporated milk and make a caramel gooey layer.

It starts like this….

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and turns into this yummy goodness!

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So I layered that on, sprinkled it with a layer of sea salt, added the rest of the batter in blobs (technical term) on top of it, then a sprinkling of chopped black walnuts, some leftover shaved chocolate and a smidge more sea salt.

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It went in the oven looking like this:

br6and came out like this:

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and was pretty amazing when I cut into it…

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Yummy, sweet, salty, gooey goodness!

br9

at Life In Between.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi