Salted Caramel Pumpkin Bars

 

When fall hits, it's almost impossible to resist the urge to bake up a batch of whatever pumpkin baked goods I can think of at the time. With all of the inundation of pumpkin spice this and pumpkin spice that (not knocking it, just saying…), its nice to have some other pumpkin flavor combinations. Enter salted caramel. This recipe is ridiculously easy and tastes like the embodiment of autumn. 

The crust is a buttery salted caramel cookie crust that is both sweet and salty. The filling can be put together really quickly, as this is a “dump all the ingredients in the bowl” type of recipe! 

This is a great office break room or church potluck type of recipe. I put mine in paper dessert cups to make them easier to pick up and go. 

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Bars

Crust

• 5 tbsp melted butter (salted)
• 1 cup salted caramel cookie crumbs
• 4 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp brown sugar

Filling

• 15 oz can pumpkin

• 14 oz can condensed milk

• 2 large eggs

• ½ tsp nutmeg

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• ¼ tsp cloves

• 2 tsp caramel extract

• 4 tbsp brown sugar

• 4 tbsp flour

• 1/2 tsp salt (optional)

• ¼ cup salted caramel candy melts (or a thick caramel sauce)

Preparation

1. Line a 9x9 square pan with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Make sure your thin, crispy cookies have been finely ground and equal 1 cup of crumbs.

3. Combine the melted butter, cookie crumbs, flour and brown sugar. Mix until all cookie crumbs have been moistened by the butter

4. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan and bake for 8-10 minutes.

5. For the filling, combine all of the filling ingredients EXCEPT FOR the salted caramel candy melts (or caramel sauce). Make sure there are no lumps of brown sugar or flour.

6. Pour the mixture onto the crust.

7. Bake for 30 minutes.

8. Melt the candy melts or caramel sauce and drizzle over the pan of pumpkin bars.

9. Let the whole pan cool completely and allow it to chill in the refrigerator for at least three hours before cutting and serving.

Tips

Make sure that your cookies are thin and crunchy for the crust. I found these super crunchy cookies at my local grocery store. Here's a picture to show how thin they were:

If you don’t prefer/don’t have access to salted caramel candy melts, salted caramel sauce will work fine. I have also tried melting regular caramel candy, but found it to be a little too chewy and sticky to cut the bars easily.