Recipe to Reality: Trick or Treat Salted Caramel Peanut Bars

This "treat" was absolutely a "trick" for me.

I have never tried to make a bar dessert before, nor have I worked with caramel so I found this one very challenging to get together!

Good thing I had the day off when I decided to make this because if I had tried this on a work day I may have lost my mind!

I found this recipe on Just a Pinch Recipes, but had such difficulty with it I would never attempt it again!

For me, this dessert was extremely difficult to manipulate and wasn't scrumptious enough to go through all the trouble again...

If you still want to make this dessert...

Serves: 12
Time: 1 hour 15 mins.
Here's What You'll Need!

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 14 oz. package of wrapped caramels
• 2 tbs. water
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 cup marshmallow fluff
• 2 cups salted peanuts
• 1/4 cup candy corn

Put it All Together!

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees for baking your crust. Line a 8-inch baking pan with greased aluminum foil. (If you use non-stick foil, you do not need to grease!)

2) Combine flour, brown sugar, butter, and peanut butter in a mixer on medium speed for 1-2 minutes until tiny crumbs begin to form. Press onto the bottom of pan and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool completely.

3) Unwrap your caramels...all 40 of them... then melt them over a double boiler. I don't currently own a double boiler, so I boiled water in a pot and used a skillet on top. Worked just fine! Keep stirring it once in a while so it doesn't burn. WARNING: This becomes unbearably sticky!

4) Beat the confectioners sugar with the marshmallow fluff in your mixer. Good luck getting it out!!! Use extra powdered sugar to act as flour to remove the marshmallow mixture onto a flexible cutting board. Mold into a square about the size of your crust. I found this part to be extremely difficult. Everytime I touched the fluffy stuff my hands were completely covered in this stuff. I actually started to feel a little claustrophobic like I couldn't get away! I don't even have any pictures of this because my hands were SO sticky!!!

5) Spread half of the caramel onto the crust (if you can...) and then place the marshmallow "square" on top of the caramel and crust. Pour the rest of the caramel on top of the marshmallow (if you can...) top with peanuts and candy corn and use a piece of saran wrap or parchment paper to push down and condense the bars.

I hope if you decide to make this you have better luck than I, but I found them to be a lot of work for not enough taste.

Too tricky for me!

Stay Sweet,