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,

Recipe To Reality: Mallow Brownie Bars

Happy End of Summer Sweethearts!

Last Friday Jasmine and I got together and baked up a STORM! Her recipe of choice was some delicious oatmeal cookies.  I chose to whip up some Mallow Brownie bars for a Labor Day BBQ I was attending!

I found these decadent treats on Nichi's blog, The Mandatory Mooch. They are extremely easy to make despite their intricate appearance. They are so delicious and definitely will not fail to impress anyone's taste buds.

One of my favorite quick desserts has to be box brownies. I know, I know, probably not worthy of a "food blog" discussion, but just having access to a delicious treat that only takes a few ingredients you are bound to have around your home is a relief when you finish the last box of Oreos. Thus, when I saw that brownies were included in this recipe, I was extremely excited to make it! Another incentive was that I had all of the ingredients for the rest of recipe, and I'm sure many of you will be in the same boat!

The actual process was a piece of cake, no pun intended. When the brownies were almost done, I took them out of the oven and dumped a bag of mini marshmallows on top. I allowed it to bake for another 3 minutes (I let the brownies bake prior for about 25 minutes) so that the sugary topping had developed a sort of hard shell, but had not completely melted.

While the bottom layers of the dessert were cooling, I started on the top chocolate layer, which involved  chocolate, peanut butter, butter, and crispy rice cereal.  Although I ended up having only half a bag of chocolate chips (the recipe called for 1 full bag) everything actually ended up coming together fairly nice. I also used Simply Jif peanut butter, which has about a 1/3 less fat than the regular kind included in a popular lunch box staple.

Once I finished melting everything together, I poured the chocolate mixture on top of the brownies and spread evenly with a spatula. Once everything was visually appealing, the brownies went into the fridge for 1-2 hours to set.

A little while later, the treat was ready to eat! They cut evenly, and there was no problem with any liquidy chocolate left on top. Everyone at the party I brought them to loved them, and they were gone within 10 minutes! They actually remind me of chocolate Rice Krispie Treats.  All in all, I though these brownie bars were a hit and I will totally be making them again! If anyone is going back to school, these are a perfect cure for the end of summer blues that everyone is sure to face in the coming weeks. (:

Stay Sweet,