Revel Bars

As you may have noticed, I love making ‘bars’/’slices’. They are easy to distribute and package, and you tend to get more servings (I was going to say they last longer, but not in this house!)

I’m really into layer bars at the moment AND fudge, so was really excited to make these ‘revel bars’; an oaty base with a fudge centre and more oaty biscuit on top.

Ingredients:
1 cup (225g) butter
2 cups (300g) soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups (300g)plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2.5 cups (200g) quick-cooking rolled oats
1 can  (397g) sweetened condensed milk
175g milk chocolate/175g dark chocolate
1 cup (60g) chopped walnuts
2 teaspoons vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar, leave 2tablespoons of butter for the fudge

Whisk in the eggs and 2tsp vanilla

Add the dry ingredients and mix

Put the 2tablespoons of butter, condensed milk, chocolate and 2tsp vanilla into a pan. Heat until the chocolate has melted.

Take fudge of the heat once ready and add the walnuts

Press 2/3 of the biscuit mixture into the cake pan, I used a 20cm square cake pan

Pour the fudge over and spread evenly

Dollop blobs of the remaining biscuit mixture over

Bake in the oven at 180deg for 20mins/until the biscuit topping is golden brown

Leave to cool in the cake tin.  Once cooled, place in the fridge to set the fudge centre for at least 2hrs/overnight.

Cut into squares

These are sooo good.  The oaty biscuit layer has an almost cake like consistency and the fudge layer…is well fudgy.  Sooo addictive!

I found these super cute boxes on eBay 😍

Brownie Caramelita

What do I like love more, caramelitas or brownies?

I couldn’t decide between the chewy, caramely, oaty caramelitas (and some may say healthy, oats and pecans are known to lower cholesterol and pecans are good for flagging energy levels, I will ignore the rest of the obesity/diabetes inducing ingredients :p) and fudgy chocolatey brownies.

So I decided to combine them together to make this amazing bar.

I prepared the caramelita biscuit and brownie mixture (I made half the amount, no nuts/fruit).

I baked the oaty base for 10mins:

Then covered with the brownie mixture, and baked for 20mins:

I then smoothed the caramel on top and sprinkled the chocolate chips and pecans:

And crumbled the remaining oaty biscuit dough on top, before baking for a further 20mins:

Once cooled, I left it in the fridge overnight.

Omg… These are amazing!

The thin brownie layer is just enough to give it that fudgy hit, and compliments the gooey caramel and caramelised pecans gorgeously.

New fave? Me thinks so!

Caramelitas

I follow a few American foodies on Facebook, Instagram and blogs and love the different slices/bars they make. They look really enticing with the layers of pastry/brownie/caramel/nuts/jams/cookies/cheesecake etc etc.  One of my early food memories is a Tri-Level bar my sister made after a holiday to America.

these images were taken from the wonderful http://chocolatechocolateandmore.com/

My main problem is even though there are numerous recipes out there, I find it really confusing converting cups to grams, as there are loads of different conversion tables which all come up with different results.

I visited the stall, at the Good Food Cake and Bake Show, for the Outsider Tart who have brought their yummy American baked goods to the UK.  I was able to try a few of their slices and my favourite was an oaty caramelly bar.

I later saw these on instagram and knew I had to make them.

Ingredients:
(made 24 squares)
240g/2 cups plain flour
160g/2 cups quick cooking oats (I used Quaker Oats
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¼ teaspoon of salt
200g/1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
240g/1 cup unsalted butter
100g chocolate chips
60g chopped pecans
400ml of Caramel (I used tinned Nestle Caramel)

(recipe adapted from: Brown Eyed Baker and Roxanas Homebaking, I used Roxanas conversions from cups to grams and made a few adaptations as I went along, still not 100% happy with the conversions but it turned out well)

Method:
1)Preheat oven to 180 C and prepare tin (I used my brownie tray, which is 13.5” by 8”)

2) cream the sugar and butter, add the flour/bicarb/salt and mix, once combined add the oats  and mix until it forms a crumbly mixture

3) cover the base of the tin with ¾ of the crumble mixture, spreading so its even and bake for 10mins

4) take out of the oven and sprinkle with the chocolate chips and pecans, then pour over the caramel, and spread evenly using a spatula

5) crumble the remaining crumble mixture over the top evenly

6) bake in the oven for 10-15mins, til lightly browned

7) leave to cool, once at room temperature, leave in the fridge for two hours/overnight.  Cut into squares and serve (return to room temperature before serving, though if you can’t wait you can try one…or two).

These were absolutely delicious and really easy to make.
The oaty biscuit base and topping is buttery and has a caramelly taste from the brown sugar, and the caramel/chocolate/pecan filling compliments it so well.