Chocolate Salted Caramel Cookie Bars

Remember these chocolate salted caramel tarts? They were worth licking the screen! Yup, they were that good! This time we've twisted the recipe a little and ended up with these chocolate salted caramel cookie bars.

Chocolate Salted Caramel Cookie Bars Recipe:
Idea taken from Marmiton 

For the Cookies:
Makes around 40 cookies

• 250 gr all purpose flour;
• 40 gr finely ground almonds;
• 125 gr butter;
• 1 egg;
• 80 gr sugar;
• 15 ml rum;
• pinch of salt;
• pinch of cloves;
• pinch of cardamom;
• ½ tsp dry ginger;
• 1 tsp cinnamon.

Combine flour, ground almonds, sugar, salt and all the spices and mix well. Cut the butter in small cubes and rub it with your fingerstips into the flour mixture until small crumbs form. Add in the egg and the rum and knead just until combined. Don't overwork. Gather the dough together. Form it to a brick and wrap tightly in plastic wrap or put it in a well closed bowl and then in the fridge for an hour to set.

Preheat the oven to 180º C and position a rack in the center. Prepare a silpat or line the baking pan with paper.

Flour the counter and roll the dough out to about 3 mm thick. Cut out 2,5 x 8 cm rectangles. If there are any dough scraps left, gather and reroll them. Bake for around 15 minutes or until golden. Let cool on a wire rack.

For the Caramel:

• 125 ml water;
• 400 gr granulated sugar;
• 60 gr glucose;
• 125 ml heavy cream;
• 110 gr butter (if using salted butter skip the salt below);
• 15 gr flaked sea salt (or to taste).

Line a large flat pan with silpat or a sheet of baking paper.

In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, glucose and the water and bring to a boil. Salt can be added at this initial step (skip if using salted butter), but I prefer to add it at the end in order to preserve the salt crystals. Cook without stirring until amber colour, if using a candy thermometer it should reach 180º C . Remove the saucepan from heat and whisk in the butter and the cream until smooth. Pour the caramel onto the prepared sheet and using an offset spatula spread it out to the desired thickness. If you haven't put salt till now, it's time to use it – sprinkle the salt crystals over the caramel sheet. Work quickly. Let it cool and set for half an hour. If needed you could force it in the fridge. Then using a pizza cutter, cut the caramel to 2,5 x 8 cm rectangles. Place a rectangle over each cookie.

Note: If the humidity is higher in your kitchen, or it's warmer, then you have to work with the caramel as quicker as you can, since it starts to spread itself over and even around the cookies. If this happens you could just fix it with your fingers.

For the Ganache;

• 150 gr heavy cream;
• 150 gr high quality dark chocolate, finely chopped;

Prepare the ganache prior to caramel in order to be ready for instant use as soon as you put the caramel rectangles over the cookies.

Bring the cream to a simmer. Melt the chocolate (we are doing this in the microwave), but beware not to burn it. When the cream is around 50ºC, pour it over the melted chocolate and stir to obtain a smooth ganache. Place the ganache in a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip – we used tip № 7, since this is the biggest we have, but № 9 or 10 will fit better. Pipe the ganache longwise over the caramel sheet of each cookie. Then coat with tempered chocolate immediately.

For coating:

• 1 kilo of high quality dark chocolate, tempered – we used Cacao Barry's dark chocolate couverture, origin, Tanzanie. 

Place the salted caramel ganache cookies onto a wire rack and using a tablespoon pour tempered chocolate over them, sealing even the smallest holes to prevent caramel from leakage.

Not all the chocolate will be used. And at the end there will be a lot of it drained under the wire rack, that could be saved for further uses. But it's easier to work with bigger quantities.

When the chocolate hardens carefully remove the bars from the wire rack. Using a sharp knife trim the excessive chocolate from the bottom side – the one that has set while draining through the wire rack.

Tempering the chocolate is essential here, as for the most chocolate coated threats. It gives shiny look, nice structure and a good snap sound when broken. So don't skip it!

Note for Cacao Barry's fans: Use dark chocolate couverture with a higher fluidity, such as the origins: Tanzanie, Equateur or Venezuela.
First we tried with Cacao Barry's Mexique and the result was a very thick coating. 

We've linked  this post to Lisa's Sweets for a Saturday round-up. Go check it to find a lot of other sweeties.