#2 - Chocolate Chip Shortbread

I have my 3-month check up with my oncologist tomorrow (Doc Onc) and I almost always take him a treat.  I guess you could call it a bribe… a clean bill of health in exchange for some baked goods.  It’s worked so far!

This time I decided to make shortbread – chocolate chip shortbread.  It’s probably not a great time of year to bring sweets to the office with people being on their New Year’s diets and all, but oh well! It’s not like I’m in there all the time with sweets (thank the Lord!!).

Anyway, after a quick search on Pinterest, I went with a recipe from Delishhh .  I pretty much stayed with the original recipe.  The only thing I did different is that I used 1 cup of mini chocolate chips instead of the 1 ½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips called for.  I wanted chocolate in every nibble of cookie. 

They turned out pretty tasty.  Not real sweet.  Crispy.  Chocolaty.  Hope Doc Onc likes ‘em!

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

Yield: 30-2" cookies

Prep Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

ingredients:

12 tbsp (1 & 1/2 sticks) butter, room temp
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 ½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

directions:

Make sure the butter is room temperature and then cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk or sift together the flour and salt.

Add the flour and salt to the butter mixture. Mix on low speed until it comes together into a dough. Add the chocolate chips and mix in.

Roll the dough into a log about 2 inches in diameter (roll it wider or skinnier depending on how big you want your cookies). Roll the log in some wax paper.

Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350F and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Slice the log into 1/4 inch slices. Place the slices on the sheet. They don't spread much, so they can be pretty close together.

Bake for 10-13 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to brown.

Remove from the pan and cool to room temp.

Recipe #2 of 52 (keeping up so far!)

Salted Caramel-Chocolate Chip Oat Bars

Tuesdays have become "baking day" for me, mostly due to the fact that I was baking treats to take to chemo every week.  Now that chemo is over, I'm still trying to keep up the baking.  This week I tried a recipe I found on Pinterest.  The original recipe can be found here.  I made a few modifications, the main one being that the original recipe is made in an 8x8 pan, which is much too small! I adjusted the recipe for a 9x11 pan - plenty of bars for everyone!  I also used an 11oz. bag of Kraft Caramel Bits instead of unwrapping all of those caramel squares - my chemo fingers just couldn't do it!  Finally, I sprinkled a little sea salt over the caramel layer before baking.

Well, that's about it!  Let me know if you try them. Hope you like 'em!!  Enjoy!!

Salted Caramel-Chocolate Chip Oat Bars
Adapted from the original recipe at LuLu the Baker.

32 caramel squares, unwrapped (or 1-11oz. bag of Caramel Bits)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups butter, melted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats
2  teaspoons baking soda
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate chips)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt, coarse

Combine caramels and cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until completely smooth; set aside. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats, and baking soda. Pat half of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of an 9x11" pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Pour caramel mixture over chocolate chips and sprinkle evenly with sea salt. Crumble remaining oatmeal mixture over caramel. Return to oven and bake an additional 15-20 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting.

*If you try cutting the bars before they are completely cooled, they will fall apart.  Put them in the fridge if you can't wait for the molten caramel to cool down. They should however, be stored and served at room temperature (although warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream wouldn't be a bad idea either).
**If you want to use homemade or store-bought caramel sauce in place of the caramel/cream mixture, use 1 1/4 cups of caramel sauce, and omit the caramel squares and heavy cream.