Our decadent chocolate covered sea salt caramels are given a quick stir and bake with all the right sweet and salty ingredients making a rich blondie bite you will want to share with everyone. About the same amount of effort and clean-up as making brownies from a box mix, but sooo much more fun and delicious!
Dark Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Blondie Bars
Recipe by Executive Chef John McConnell
INGREDIENTS:
8 Tbsp (4 ounces) unsalted butter
3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
2.5 oz Clif Family Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels, some cut in half and others in quarters (roughly 1/2 a container)
1/2 cup thin-style salted pretzel sticks, lightly broken
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Butter an 8×8-inch baking pan. Melt butter until only a few small chunks remain in the bottom of a large bowl, either over a double-boiler or in the microwave. Stir to melt the remaining butter, this ensures the butter doesn’t get too hot to work with. Add sugar and whisk to combine, then egg and vanilla extract. Measure flour into 1 cup measure and add the measured amounts of salt and baking powder atop the flour and gently run a knife through the dry ingredients to mix, then add to the egg mixture and stir just until it disappears. Add half of the chocolate caramels and broken pretzels and gently fold them in. Spread batter in prepared baking pan, smoothing the top. Place remaining chocolate caramels and pretzels on top using fingers to gently press into batter just enough for good adherence.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until deeply golden at edges. Let cool in pan completely on a wire rack. Once cooled remove from pan cut into small squares and enjoy!