Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Bars – Delicious and festive shortbread bars with creamy chocolate and soft chewy caramel! Perfect for your upcoming event!
My mother makes the best homemade candy. The absolute best.
I’m sorry, but this isn’t up for debate. She’s perfected it over the course of 40 years and refined her recipes at both sea-level and high altitudes. It’s stunningly delicious in every way and her three most famous candies (and my personal favorites) are English toffee, peanut brittle, and soft caramels.
Her soft caramels seriously stay so soft and chewy and gooey and delicious. They have a deep buttery flavor and they are RICH. It’s really quite crazy because they are solid in their individual little wax paper wrappers, but they completely melt in your mouth and explode with caramely flavor goodness.
Anyone who tastes them is blown away. Absolutely shocked at how amazing they are.
One of these days I’m going to convince her to open a candy shop.
But she’s a stubborn bugger.
These shortbread bars remind me of my mother. In fact I took over a bag just for her. One day I’ll learn to make my mother’s miracle caramel, but for now, these bars are pretty dang good!! I’m thinking of making them again for a family holiday party. Everyone will be thoroughly impressed 😉
Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Bars
Ingredients
- 2 ½ sticks butter - divided
- 1 ¼ cups flour
- ¾ cup sugar - divided
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup milk chocolate chips
- ¼ cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 and line an 8x8 inch pan with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl combine 1/4 cup sugar and 1 stick of butter and cream together until smooth. Add flour and mix. Stir in milk. Mixture will resemble crumbs. Press into the pre-lined pan and bake 20 minutes until golden. Remove and allow to cool .
- In a medium sauce pan melt 1 1/2 sticks of butter with 1/2 cup sugar. Add corn syrup and condensed milk. Bring to a boil and then decrease to simmer 6-8 minutes or until mixture achieves golden brown color, stirring constantly. (*For lower altitudes, simmer time may need to be reduced 2-3 minutes, watch carefully for coloring!) Pour caramel onto cooled shortbread. Allow to sit at room temperature 1-2 hours or until caramel has cooled and set.
- Melt milk chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Repeat in a separate bowl with white chocolate chips. Pour milk chocolate over caramel and spread evenly with a rubber spatula or the back of a spoon. Drizzle white chocolate over milk chocolate and swirl with spatula or spoon. Allow chocolate to cool completely before cutting into bars and serving. Store in airtight container.
These bars look awesome! I am usually not a fan of caramel, but yours look very rich and gooey. I would love to try it. Thanks for sharing
These look great and I would love to try them. Just a question….not sure if I missed it but the directions call for water and I don’t see it listed anywhere in the ingredients. How much water is needed? Thanks!!!!
Oh dear, it’s actually the milk that is stirred in, no water 🙂 Sorry about the confusion and thanks for the catch! These are great, still have a few in my pantry, hiding from my husband 😉 Enjoy Marta!!
Hello! I look forward to making these tomorrow. I just have one question before I do, the recipe calls for 2 1/2 sticks butter. Is that 3/4 of a pound or 1 1/4 pound? Thanks so much.
Looks so yummy! Definitely need to try this recipe.
thank you for sharing
These look so yummy!
Oh my, these look sooooo good! Printing the reciped right now.