Chocolate Oat Dulce De Leche Bars
Everyone knows how much Hubby loves caramel. He also loves caramel’s first cousin, dulce de leche. I’ve made Homemade Dulce De Leche in the Crockpot, but sometimes life calls for shortcuts.
Hubby was feeling neglected since it had been all of 3 days since my last baking adventure. So I decided to make a treat that he would really enjoy. Seriously, best wife ever. As I was standing in the baking aisle in my grocery store, a small can caught my eye. I had never seen canned dulce de leche before and I was intrigued to try it.
These Chocolate Oat Dulce De Leche Bars are pretty freaking amazing. You’ve got chocolate and oats and chocolate chips and dulce de leche. They’re out of control.
One Year Ago: French Macarons – Chocolate with Espresso Buttercream and French Macarons – Hazelnut with Chocolate Ganache
Two Years Ago: White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Bars and Chocolate Almost Candy Bars
Three Years Ago: Crockpot Pulled Pork
Four Years Ago: Lemon Curd Cookies
Chocolate Oat Dulce De Leche Bars
Yield: 24 bars
Ingredients:
3/4 cups flour
1 cup oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp espresso powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 13.4-ounce can dulce de leche
2 Tbsp milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Heat oven to 350F.
Place flour, oats, brown sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and mix well.
Place butter and unsweetened chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute or until butter and chocolate are melted, stirring after 30 seconds. Mix melted butter mixture into dry ingredients until crumb forms.
Reserve 1/2 cup of crumb mixture. Place remaining crumb mixture in a greased 8×8-inch pan and press down evenly. Bake crust for 10 minutes.
Place dulce de leche and milk in a small bowl and mix well until smooth. Evenly spread dulce de leche over partially baked crust.
Top evenly with chocolate chips and remaining 1/2 cup chocolate crumb mixture. Bake an additional 12 to 15 minutes or until set.
Cool 1 hour at room temperature and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours or until filling is set. Cut into 16 bars and store in the refrigerator.
Recipe from Cake Batter and Bowl
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I love freezing dough but somehow most ends up in my tummy unbaked when I do that 🙂
What a great gift! I’m thinking that would be wonderful for all sorts of occasions. Thanks for the idea!
These are adorable and I love that idea! Two questions, though: 1) Were these as good as the cookies from the other recipes? and 2) When you freeze them, do you bake right from frozen?
Great questions Carly – As far as comparing them to the other cookies. I enjoyed the chocolate M&M cookies the best, but they were REALLY chocolatey. The other non-chocolate M&M cookies were a bit more chewy and they had nuts in them, so they had a different vibe. This recipe was more of a classic M&M cookie for sure.
As far as baking from frozen, you can def just go straight from freezer to oven. Bake them ~13 minutes instead of ~11 and take them out when they look done.
these were delicious!
they look so cute all frozen up 🙂
I love the pink and red M&Ms. Thanks for the idea of freezing the cookie dough.
I was going to ask you the same thing as Carly, well the first question. These cookies are cute. Your freezing method reminded me that I have a bunch of sugar cookies still in the freezer! Do you know how long cookies can stay in the freezer?
I don’t know how long they will last in the freezer. I have a tendency to forget about things in my freezer… I’d guess a couple months? Anyone have ideas?
What festive little cookies 🙂 I love them! I also like the fact that you froze them. I bet they were delicious. Make sure to enter the All Through the Year Cheer event for Valentine’s Day 🙂
I think that sounds like a great way to spend valentine’s day. It can be intimidating the way it’s so hyped up. The cookies look very festive, love ’em!
We don’t do “valentine’s day” either since my MIL was born on the 14th and daughter’s birthday is the 15th – besides, its more important to say you love someone everyday, not just one day out of the year. Love the idea about freezing the cookie dough in preshaped form and giving that away. Wonderful idea!
I am looking for cookies that travel well for my soldier adopted through Soldier’s Angels and these look like a winner!!
Mmm, these were so tasty! Happy Valentine’s Day!
These are just too cute!! I love M&M cookies too!!
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Just had to add my two cents on the idea of giving cookie dough frozen and ready to be baked – genius! For some reason, I’ve never thought of that, even though I’ve given cookies frozen to people to be defrosted when they’re ready to eat. I love the dough idea!
YUM-these look absolutely delicious! I love the pink and red M&Ms!