Sweet and Salty = HEAVEN

In my last post, I promised that I would find a super yummy recipe for this week's post and I did! I was browsing my pins on Pinterest and found a recipe for Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Cookie Bars. Does that sound scrumptious or what? Also, I just got my braces off after having them for two years and wasn't supposed to eat caramel while I had them (I did anyways), so it was perfect! They turned out to be WAY better than I thought they would, which is saying a lot. Seriously, they are like heaven in bar form. If I could marry them, I would.

Here's is how to make them so you can have some heaven of your own!

Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Cookie Bars

You will need:

2 1/8 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

12 Tbsp butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips (1 bag)

10 oz caramel candy squares

3 Tbsp heavy cream

sea salt

This first step seems a little bit out of order, but trust me, it's the smart way to go. Measure your butter and put it in the microwave until it is completely melted. Take it out and let it cool to room temperature. While doing this, I had a Claire moment and forgot to cover the butter in the microwave. Let's just say a stick and a half of butter went to waste and the mess took me at least ten minutes to clean up. Good job Claire. To avoid this, MAKE SURE you don't forget to cover up the butter or it will pop all over the microwave. It's not fun. Trust me.

In a medium bowl (if using an electric mixer, don't use that bowl), combine the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.

In a large bowl (this can be the mixer's bowl), combine the melted butter and both sugars and mix well. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. You should have one egg white and two yolks. Make sense? To separate the egg, crack it and over a bowl, switch the yolk in between the two halves of the egg shell until you no longer have any egg white.

Next, slowly add the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips to the mixture.

In a microwave-save bowl, combine the caramels (UNWRAPPED!) and heavy cream. Heat it in the microwave until it is melted. If you stir it every twenty seconds or so it works well and takes only around two minutes. 

Either before or while melting the caramel, take around half of the cookie dough and press it into the bottom of a greased 13x9 inch pan, just like you do with the sugar cookie bars. 

Once the caramel is smooth and melted, pour it over the cookie dough while it is hot and sprinkle it with sea salt. Press the remaining cookie dough on the top and sprinkle with sea salt again. I made little balls of dough and squished them for the top layer so I didn't get caramel everywhere. This ended up working well. 

Bake for about twenty-five minutes at 325ºF. Let them cool before cutting and then EAT THEM ALL UP!

Enjoy!

Sticky and Scrumptious

In the past few months, I've had some requests for Marshmallow Caramel Popcorn, so here you go! 

Once or twice a year, my whole soccer team goes to a teammate's cabin for a fun weekend together. One of my teammates, Lily, always brings this popcorn and we all LOVE it. Take it from me, once you have one tiny piece, within minutes, you will have a nice, ooey, gooey handful of this delicious popcorn. She brings a huge bowl full of it, which always ends up completely empty before the trip is even over. The recipe that I found is not the same recipe, but it still tastes DELISH! I mean, who doesn't like popcorn, especially when it's covered in sugary goodness?


Here's how you make the popcorn, it's super easy and takes almost no time at all!

MARSHMALLOW CARAMEL POPCORN

via All Recipes

Materials:

23 large marshmallows - Honestly, I have no idea why it has to be twenty three...
2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 packages of microwave popcorn

1 large bowl
1 large pot

First, you need to pop the popcorn. Easy enough, right? Obviously, I don't make popcorn too often (AT ALL!) and burnt it. Whoops! Some parts were literally charred black, but don't worry, I took those parts out!

Now it's time for the good part. Melt your TWENTY THREE marshmallows, brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and vanilla in a pot on medium-low heat and stir. It seems kind of pointless to stir at the beginning, but eventually it will be important so you won't burn it. That would truly stink if you burned the popcorn, like me, and the caramel!

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Keep stirring...

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Almost done...

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Woo hoo!

As you can see, I got a little bit tired of stirring.

Once your marshmallow mixture is completely melty and gooey, pour it over the popcorn, which should be in your large bowl.

Now all you have to do is spread the caramel throughout the popcorn. Being brilliant and all, I thought it would be easier to coat the popcorn with my hands. Sometimes I wonder where I get these ideas from. Let's just say... IT WAS SO HOT! Bad idea Claire. Instead, stir the popcorn with a spoon.

And that's that! I hope you have fun making (and eating, of course) your marshmallow caramel popcorn!