Salted Caramel Butter Bars w/ Home-made Caramel

This recipe for salted caramel butter bars from The Domestic Rebel is perfect for finishing left-over sugar and butter. If there is no such thing I am telling you maybe you’ve never organised an art show where a friend made a platypus cake and then moved back to the States and left you with all the sugar she bought for that cake.

I make mine with my own salted caramel sauce because it’s kind of ridiculous to pay for a jar of sugar and cream when it’s so cheap and easy to make yourself.

Salted Caramel Butter Bars

Dorothy Porker

These indulgent caramel butter bars are made with home made caramel sauce and make a great party favor or treat.

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Course Dessert, Treat

Cuisine American, Dutch

Servings 10

Equipment

• Small saucepan
• Oven
• Food processor
• Baking tin (20x20cm/ 7.5"x7.5")
• Parchment

Ingredients

  

For the caramel sauce

• 7/8 c - 110 gr plain sugar
• 4 T - 60 ml water
• 1 1/3 c - 300 ml double cream
• 1/4 c - 30 gr butter
• flakey salt to taste

For the butter bars

• 2 c - 250 gr butter room temperature
• 1 c - 130 gr plain sugar
• 1 1/2 c - 200 gr powdered sugar
• 1 t - 5 ml vanilla extract
• 4 c - 500 gr all purpose flour

Instructions

 

Make the caramel sauce

• You will need to allow this to cool fully, so be sure to prepare this at least an hour ahead of time to allow it to cool.
• Place 7/8 c - 110 gr sugar in a small heavy saucepan with 4 T - 60 ml of water. Set on a medium heat and let sit, lid off, no stirring, no shaking, no nothing, until the sugar has dissolved completely.
• Now increase the heat and leave on a roaring boil until the mixture turns golden brown and a caramel starts to form. This usually takes 4-5 minutes.
• Remove from the heat and stir in 1 1/3 c - 300 ml of cream, 1/4 c - 30 gr of butter and flaky salt to taste. Be sure to be careful because it’ll be really fucking hot, when you add the cream it'll bubble up and all look a bit scary. The caramel may congeal at first but if you keep stirring it should turn out fine. Once mixed, set aside and leave to cool completely.

Make the butter bars

• Once the caramel sauce has cooled completely, you are ready to start making bars. Preheat your oven at 180° C/ 350° F and line a 20x20cm/ 7.5"x7.5" baking tin with parchment.
• Mix together 2 c - 250 gr of butter, 1 c - 130 gr of plain and 1 1/2 c - 200 gr of powdered sugars together until light and fluffy. This should take 2 minutes or so. I use my food processor because if you try to mix powdered sugar with anything without using a cover, you’re going to have a bad time.
• Finally mix in 1 t - 5 ml of vanilla extract and 4 c - 500 gr of plain flour until a soft dough has formed.
• Spread out half of the dough into the lined baking tray, place the remainder of the dough in the fridge. This will seem like too short of a time to put the dough away but cooling it will allow it to stiffen up a bit for the final part of the bake.
• Bake the first half of the dough for 15 minutes.
• Remove from the oven. Your bake will be super wobbly and won't look anywhere near done: this is part of the plan. Pour your salted caramel sauce over the first layer of dough and crumble the remainder of the dough from the fridge over the top.
• Now bake your butter bars for another 25-30 minutes. Until the top starts to look golden brown. A slightly wobble is allowed because it will continue to cook and set as you remove it from the oven. Leave to cool before cutting into squares.

Notes

Provided they last that long, these butter bars will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container at room temperature.

The salted caramel sauce will keep for up to 2 weeks stored in an airtight jar in the fridge.

Keyword baking, bars, butter bars, salted caramel, salted caramel sauce, sweet treats