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|| byKat|46 Comments
These super decadent and incredibly delicious salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars are extremely easy to make. Crumbly, buttery chocolate chip cookie dough is paired perfectly with luscious salted caramel, and the extra melted chocolate and chocolate chips round off what just might be your new favourite dessert.
Yes, do read the post title again. Salted caramel. Chocolate chip. Cookie bars. Aren’t you glad you’ve stopped by?! There are quite a few words that come to mind regarding this recipe.
Decadent.
Sweet.
Indulgent.
Scrumptious.
Almost-over-the-top-but-actually-just-right.
Okay, the last is not really a word (if you squint, it is), but it’s exactly what these lovelies are. Because why stop at just cookie bars? Let’s also add in chocolate chips. A whole lot of them. And let’s go a step further and slather on a thick layer of shiny, luscious salted caramel. Then, a drizzle of melted chocolate. Just because. And more chocolate chips. And… no, wait, that’s it.
There is nothing understated or subtle about these salted caramel chocolate chips cookie bars. They are layer on layer of deliciousness; each layer oh-so-yummy on its own, but together… they will. Blow. Your. Mind.
The just-crumbly-enough cookie bottom is perfectly buttery, and contains enough chocolate chips for every mouthful to be a mini chocolate taste explosion. The cookie dough itself is only slightly sweet, and is balanced perfectly by the luxurious salted caramel layer.
Getting the salted caramel to set to just the right consistency is a delicate science – and this recipe gets it right every single time. The caramel is thick enough to be able to cut the bars easily, but melts the moment it hits your tongue. The melted chocolate and extra chocolate chips complete a dessert that is virtually impossible to improve further.
Here’s another amazing thing about these salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars: they are incredibly easy to make! Yes, really. I bet you’re frowning sceptically at the screen right now, thinking I’m having you on. I’m not, pinky promise.
And when you make them, and everyone’s ‘oohing and aahing’ over them, and asking you how long you’ve slaved away in the kitchen to make this masterpiece… well, then, you’ll believe me.
And the wonders of these salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars don’t end here. In addition to being super decadent, incredibly delicious, and extremely easy to make, they are also ideal to make for a large group of people. The only limit is the size of your baking tray – other than that, go crazy.
Do these salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars seem too good to be true? Yes.
But are they? Most definitely not.
However, as they say, “the proof is in the pudding”. So make them. Enjoy them. Share them. And then make them again. Because once you’ve tasted them, you’ll want to do so again. And again.
SALTED CARAMEL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE BARS
These super decadent and incredibly delicious cookie bars are extremely easy to make. Crumbly, buttery chocolate chip cookie dough is paired perfectly with luscious salted caramel, and the extra melted chocolate and chocolate chips round off what just might be your next favourite dessert. NOTE: In making these cookie bars, I have used a 8.5 x 7.5 " baking tray 2 inches deep. For baking trays of different dimensions, the ingredients amounts, and possibly the baking time, need to be adjusted.
Print Rate SAVE
5 from 6 votes
Prep Time 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins
Cook/Bake Time 20 minutes mins
Total Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins
Servings 20
Author Kat | The Loopy Whisk
Ingredients
For chocolate chip cookie bottom:
- 175 g unsalted butter, softened
- 50 g caster sugar
- 1 large egg
- 300 g plain flour, sifted
- pinch of salt
- 100 g chocolate chips
For salted caramel:
- 250 g caster sugar
- 100 g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 210 mL double cream, room temperature
- 1 – 2 tsp salt (Note 1)
For assembly:
- 50 g melted chocolate
- 50 g chocolate chips
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 ºF (175 ºC) and line a baking tray, at least 1.5 inch deep, with greaseproof/baking paper.
Cream together butter and sugar.
Add the egg, and mix thoroughly.
Add the flour, salt and chocolate chips, and mix until a smooth, not sticky, cookie dough with evenly distributed chocolate chips forms.
Press the cookie dough into the lined baking tray and even it out so that it is approximately 1/2 inch (about 1.5 cm) thick. Put into the fridge for about 1/2 hour.
Bake the cookie dough in the preheated oven at 350 ºF (175 ºC) for 18 to 20 minutes, or until light golden brown at the edges. The cookie dough might feel soft immediately out of the oven, but will firm on cooling.
Leave to cool completely (in the baking tray!). In the mean time, make the salted caramel.
For salted caramel:
Heat caster sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a heat resistant rubber spatula or wooden spoon.
The sugar may form clumps but will eventually melt into a thick golden brown liquid as you continue to stir. Be careful not to burn the caramel.
Once the sugar is completely melted, immediately add the butter. On its addition, the caramel will bubble rapidly – be careful.
Stir the butter into the caramel until it is completely melted, about 2-3 minutes. The butter will tend to separate from the caramel – just stir vigorously.
Very slowly, drizzle in the double cream while stirring. The mixture will rapidly bubble due to the temperature difference and may splatter – be careful.
Allow the mixture to boil for about 1 minute. It will rise in the pan as it boils.
Remove from heat and stir in the salt. Allow to cool down before using (the salted caramel should be slightly warmer than room temperature for pouring onto the cookie bottom).
Any leftover salted caramel sauce (what's that?) keeps well in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
For assembly:
Still in the baking tray, pour the warm salted caramel onto the cookie bottom so that it forms a uniform layer, about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) thick.
Allow to set overnight in the fridge. The salted caramel will firm up, enough to be easy to cut but retain its melt-in-the-mouth consistency.
Remove the cookie bottom + salted caramel layers from the baking tray, and while still cold, cut them into rectangular pieces (the recipe should give about 20 pieces).
Drizzle the cookie bars with melted chocolate, and decorate with extra chocolate chips. And enjoy!
The salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars keep well in a cool dry place (or even in the fridge, just allow them to come to room temperature before serving) for about 3 to 4 days. They never last that long, though.
Notes
Note 1: The exact amount of salt depends entirely on how salty you want your salted caramel to be. I advise adding the salt gradually – you can always add more, but cannot take it away!
Tried this recipe?Mention @theloopywhisk or tag #theloopywhisk!
Looking for more salted caramel deliciousness? I have just the thing!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Salted Caramel!
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46 thoughts on “Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars”
Major winner!! Please don’t stop posting in weight measurements- such a better, more precise way to bake. This is an awesome Carmel sauce, I’m thinking it will be very versatile! Thanks
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Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to try this! I’m going to brown the butter first and see how that tastes! I just love brown butter with chocolate chip cookies 🙂
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Made these this afternoon…..there’s nothing left! It’s just a shame you didn’t post the ingredients in Latin as I prefer to follow recipes in ancient script….seriously, some of the comments below are ridiculous. It surely takes you longer to post the comment than look up the conversions!
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Hahahaha, you win the Internet today! Thank you so much for your comment – I’m really glad you enjoyed the bars and oh goodness, you made me laugh out loud. What can I say, measuring units in recipes seem to be a sore point for some people…
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How is a person to make this bar, when the ingredients are listed in grams or other measures???? Recipes need to be posted in cups/measuring spoon amounts. Would like to pin this recipe, but will not when you can not post it in measurements that people can use!!!
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Hi Joyce, so sorry you’re not a fan of the vastly more precise weight measurement system! Making recipes where the ingredients are listed in grams is actually really easy, as you can get a good kitchen scale in any shop or online for a very reasonable price. Using grams is also far more reliable than cups/volume measurements, which can quickly lead to measuring errors. Also, if you REALLY want to use cups – you can find very reliable conversions from grams to cups just by googling them! 🙂
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Well in the UK we use grammes not cups so just depends in which part of the world you’re complaining from. Just convert, there’s plenty of sites that give easy instruction on how to do this. Simples ????????♀️????????♀️????????♀️
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I only made the caramel sauce from this recipe and halved the measurements. Was delicious on ice cream! My rubber spatula melted so deffo use a wooden spoon ????
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Hey Sam, glad you liked the caramel sauce! 😀 Did you use a heat-resistant spatula? But, yes, a wooden spoon should have no problems 😉
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Oh my – these just leapt onto my ‘must make’ list! They look completely delicious. Thanks for posting 🙂
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Happy to hear that, Coralie! Trust me, you won’t be disappointed 😉
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This caramel chocolate chip cookie bar looks amazing, a great dessert for everyone, Thank you for sharing this recipe, amazing work.
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Hi Boyan, thank you for your kind words! Glad that you like the recipe 🙂
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These look delicious. Can’t wait to try to make them! You mention that the pan should be 1 1/2 inches deep, but not the size of the pan. I’m assuming 9×13, but I don’t want to make it too thick or thin. What size pan did you use. Thanks
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Hi Lynne! I’ve actually put the baking tray size that I’ve used in the recipe description at the top of the recipe card. I’ve used a 8.5 x 7.5 inch baking tray, 2 inches deep. Other baking tray sizes, so long as they have the same surface area should be fine. For a 9 x 13 tray, I would double the recipe. The cookie dough base should be about 1/2 inch thick, but it’s very forgiving, so a bit more or less doesn’t make a ~huge~ difference. Happy baking! And if you want to share your masterpiece, make sure to tag The Loopy Whisk on social media! 😉
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Thank you. Yes, I did find it in the description. But I think I need to make the 9 x 13 size, because who doesn’t need more of that goodness!! Thanks again, Lynne
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Can you freeze these?
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Hi Cindy! I think you should be able to freeze them… But I’m not 100% certain. If you do try to freeze them, let me know how it goes! 🙂
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I would love to receive new recipes
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Hi Dorie! I have an e-mail subscription option in the works, where you’ll be notified of any new recipes and other yummy stuff happening on the blog. Watch this space! 🙂 (There’s also the option of subscribing via an RSS feed.)
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Please convert measurements I have a chart to convert but nothing matched. This sounds fabulous would love to make it. Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookie Bars. Thank you.
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Hi Fran! Glad you like the cookie bars. 😀 Here are the measurements:
For cookie base – 3/4 cups butter, 1/3 cup caster sugar, 1 large egg, 2 1/2 cups plain flour, pinch of salt, 1/3 cup chocolate chips.
For salted caramel – 1 2/3 cups caster sugar, 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp butter, 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp double cream, 1-2 tsp salt. (For salt, add gradually – you can always add more, but can’t take it away).
Have fun making them! 🙂Reply
Mouthwatering recipe.Hoping to try it
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Glad you like it, Molly! 🙂
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Hej! I tried these yesterday, and they are really yummy. But I wonder if the caramelpart is correct? I had to boil of for a lot longer, and it still turned out really runny. I have compared with other recepies, and it seems to be more cream than in those?
Sorry, I don’t like to complain when people are so generous with sharing, but as they are so nice otherwise…:)
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Hi Ida, glad you liked them!
I actually made this recipe again just a few days ago, and caramel set really nicely. There IS more cream in my recipe than in others – because when I initially followed those recipes, the caramel on cooling turned into a semi-solid ball that could break teeth when totally cooled.
There are a few things that could cause the caramel to be too runny:
– adding water to the sugar for the caramelisation part (in this recipe, you melt and caramelise the sugar with no water added; if you do add water, it might end up runnier),
– not “caramelising” the sugar enough (but that changes the consistency by only a few percent),
– not cooking the butter and caramelised sugar mixture long enough (it really needs to be a few minutes),
– not using double cream but whipping cream or something with a lower fat content,
– not allowing the caramel to set in the fridge for a few hours (the caramel should set into a sticky layer that should be able to be cut and isn’t runny).
I hope any of this helps… I know people have been successful in making these (and LOVED them) – hope you give them another go!Reply
And I’ve just thought of another thing – if you’re in the US and used “heavy” cream instead of “double” cream, this could be a reason for a runnier caramel. Heavy cream has approximately 36% milk fat, whereas double cream has about 48% milk fat. So if you use heavy cream, use about 10-15% less.
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Thank you for the input! Being in Sweden, I used the 36% cream that is the heaviest you can but. Might be part of the explaination. (Nothing wrong with the taste though, just have to store them in the fridge;))
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I have a question about the double cream. Is that whipping cream? Or do I need to look for double cream? Going to try this but am very scared doing it with grams. Don’t want to convert because this looks amazing and I always bake it according to the recipe the first time then make it my own after that.
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Hi Wendy! As far as I am aware, double cream has a higher fat percentage. So if you’re in the UK, definitely look for double cream (I believe it’s called “heavy cream” in the US). Whipping cream gives a runnier caramel, that’s still yummy but doesn’t set well, and things can get… messy 😉 For this recipe, I really recommend using grams (at least initially) – the textures and consistencies are key (the cookie bottom just crumbly enough and the caramel layer sticky but not runny) and I’m not sure if you can be as precise using cups/tablespoons. Hope it turns out well!
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Just to clarify. Cream that has 35% milk fat is called heavy cream in the US but is called whipping cream in Canada. It is the same thing. Wendy may be a Canadian baker.
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Thank you for that, Sandy! Things can get rather confusing when you try to “translate” things between countries 😀
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Thank you for using grams! I was expecting cups as is usual with most delicious looking baking recipes and was delighted to see something I understand! I’m a UK baker and it’s taken me ages to translate American recipes, I finally figured out 1 cup is 8oz (and devides accordinly), 1 table spoon 0.5 oz but that was as close as I got! Thanks again for this lovely recipe, can’t wait to try it out!
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Aww, you’re very welcome Tash! And I know exactly what you mean, American measurements used to confuse me for ages, but now I’ve (finally) acquired a set of measuring cups… which means that half of my recipes are in cups/tablespoons and the other half in grams! Oops. 😉 I think grams are best for recipes where precision is paramount – recipes where you can kinda fudge it… cups are just fine. 🙂
This website is brilliant for calculating cups-grams conversions: https://www.weekendbakery.com/cooking-conversions/
Hope the cookie bars turn out well!Reply
Finally an english recipe that use grams! Thank you! I’m italian and i love this kind of cookies but i can’t manage with cups, teaspoons etc!???? And you explained all the steps perfectly, i’ll make them tomorrow????
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Hi Mara, I know exactly what you mean! 😀 I’m originally Slovenian and the cups/tablespoons were initially always a pain, especially when you REALLY want to make a recipe. This website is brilliant for conversions: https://www.weekendbakery.com/cooking-conversions/ It takes a bit of time to convert, but if a recipe is super yummy… it’s worth it 😉 Hope you like the cookie bars!
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You should convert your measurements I don’t like to do it it takes too much time
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Hi Karen, sorry you feel that way. If you go with cup measurements, I cannot guarantee the same wonderful crumbly cookie results or the same ideal consistency of the salted caramel layer. That’s simply because those measurements are so imprecise. Here’s a good post on this topic: http://en.christinesrecipes.com/2011/03/converting-grams-to-cups.html
Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction expresses it quite nicely: “A cup isn’t always a cup, but a gram/ounce is always a gram/ounce.”
That being said, here are the measurements: For cookie base – 3/4 cups butter, 1/3 cup caster sugar, 1 large egg, 2 1/2 cups plain flour, pinch of salt, 1/3 cup chocolate chips. For salted caramel – 1 2/3 cups caster sugar, 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp butter, 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp double cream, 1-2 tsp salt.Reply
Thank you so much for the conversions!! I still need to invest in a scale and I was just about to attempt conversions myself, but my 2 little boys are getting very Impatient and just want to start baking! These bars look so delicious!
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Hi Catherine, you’re very welcome! Glad you like them. 😀 Have fun baking with your little ones! Funny enough, I’m just baking a slight variation on them right now myself (with coconut, yum yum) 🙂
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Wish they would not post things in grams. Too much trouble to figure out the American measurments
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Hi Abby! I normally bake using gram measurements because they are much more precise. This might be helpful: https://www.weekendbakery.com/cooking-conversions/ 😉 Hope you make the cookie bars though – they’re delicious regardless of whether you use grams or cups 😛
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Oh gosh, I can hear these bars calling my name! Everything about them look absolutely irresistible. Stopping by from #recipeoftheweek!
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Thank you, so glad you like them! They really are too good for words 😉
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Wow! These look incredibly decadent!
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Thank you Vicki! And they really are decadent, but definitely not too rich (meaning: one piece is never enough 😉 ).
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