VANILLA CARMELITAS

Caramel and Vanilla are a match made in sweet treat heaven! So what happens when you throw in some chocolate chips? You’re in golden browned and gooey cookie bar bliss! So when you have an about expired bag of caramel bits in the pantry and a serious craving for a new sweet treat, thank you Mother Nature, you create one of your favorite sweets category creations: a beloved Carmelita. 
Yum  

Can you believe I grew up not knowing what a Carmelita was? Or went 4 decades before I would come to be in a love relationship with this treat?!! 

I’ve shared Carmelita recipes here on the Blog before, the Sea Salt Bars and the Pumpkin Spice White Chocolate ones and they are in the top ten of delicious treats for me. What makes these Carmelitas so unique is that instead of using cream to mix with the caramels when melting, I had the idea to use the new Tahitian Vanilla Artisan coffee creamer from Coffee Mate. This is not a sponsored post, I just really wanted to use it because it’s one that contains real milk, cream, buttermilk and Tahitian vanilla beans. And the flavor is incredible.

What you'll need

VANILLA CARMELITAS

Ingredients

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted

1 cup old fashioned quick oats

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 11oz bag Kraft Caramel Bits

1/3 cup Tahitian Vanilla Coffee Creamer

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Course Sea Salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place foil or parchment paper to line a 8x8 square baking dish and spray with cooking spray. In a small mixing bowl, mix the oats, flour, salt and baking soda. In a large glass mixing bowl melt the butter for 90 seconds, remove and add the brown sugar and vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients. Place 1/2 of this mixture in the bottom of the baking dish and press down a bit. Bake for 10 minutes. While that is in oven, in a large glass bowl, mix the caramel bits and coffee creamer together and heat in microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring after each and continue until caramel is smooth. Remove the crust from the oven and sprinkle the chocolate chips over it. Next, evenly spread the caramel mixture over the chocolate chips and then carefully top with the remaining oats mixture. Sprinkle with some course sea salt. Bake for about 18-20 minutes until the edges start to brown. VERY IMPORTANT: allow to cool completely before cutting into square as the caramel needs to set up.

Hope your day is SWEET!  I'm off to buy more caramel bits, LOL

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