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: Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies

YUM

   I pinned these as soon as I saw them because my husband's absolute favorite flavor is peanut butter! I just didn't know I'd be making them so soon!

   We are working on closing on a house, and to make a long story short, I was sitting with our loan officer at the bank this afternoon, when I was told that my husband was missing important paperwork needed to move our application forward. Of course, he was at work.

   When I called my husband about it, he said that the woman who is in charge of those materials was out of the office today. We were both disappointed because we were looking forward to moving forward with the process. Ultimately, a few minutes later he called back with great news that another co-worker got him the materials he needed right then and there! My husband responded with, "You better make John cookies!"

   So, I did.

   I went right to the supermarket and picked up a few ingredients needed for these incredibly delicious cookies.

Looks like a  lot, but I had most of this in the cabinet!

   I found these on BruCrewLife bake. eat. repeat. 

   The first thing I did was to combine my dry ingredients of flour, baking soda, vanilla pudding mix, and a pinch of salt. 

   Next I creamed the butter with the peanut butter (I used chunky) and both the white and brown sugar. When I took my brown sugar out of the cabinet, I noticed immediately that it was hard as a rock. I found these useful tips on how to soften brown sugar from About.com . They suggested a few methods, but I decided to put the box of brown sugar in the microwave along with a small bowl with water in it for intervals of 30 seconds. The idea is that that water gets evaporated and the sugar absorbs it, loosening it. It worked!

Combining Dry Ingredients

   After that, I added both eggs, the vanilla, and honey. After all of that was thoroughly combined, I gently folded in a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and a cup of Reese's Pieces. I decided to leave out the banana chips and baked them for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Creamed Butter and Sugars

   They came out absolutely PERFECT. These are probably the first cookies that I've ever made from scratch all by myself, and I am super proud of them!

   They are moist, bursting with peanut butter flavor, and each chocolate morsel is sweet and luscious.

Folded in Goodies

   I am encouraging my husband to bring the majority of these cookies to work tomorrow, but he's sitting with the plate and a glass of milk right now...

    Hope there's some left over for you, John!

Stay Sweet,
Jasmine

Ready to go to work tomorrow!