Ooey Gooey Salted Caramel Butter Bars

Is it too late in January to talk about New Years resolutions? I don’t do resolutions; I’ve never actually kept a resolution past January 2. But I set goals, which in my mind are more nebulous, and therefore easier to keep.

I have two goals for 2016:

1. find a recipe for really good homemade pizza and
2. make my life look more like life on Pinterest

I briefly considered eliminating sugar from my diet as a third goal, but let’s not go crazy. Good homemade pizza will be hard enough.

This recipe brings me closer to goal number two. I found these bars on Pinterest and oh my holy cow, they are SO CRAZY DELICIOUS. Salted caramel butter bars. How could a person go wrong with a recipe like that?

Answer: a person could not go wrong. These are so totally incredible that I’m not sorry about the countless hours I’ve spent “pinning” in the last couple of weeks.

Which brings me to some news: my blog is now on social media! You can follow the itsy bitsy kitchen on Pinterest, like us Facebook, and even follow on Instagram. (Although currently I have zero Instagram posts and don’t see that changing in the near future. Maybe when I take a decent photo. We’ll see. I’ll keep you apprised.)

I’m still working out the social media kinks because I’m so not a technical genius, as you can see from the weird picture of myself above the “like page” button to the right. (I totally just typed “left” instead of “right”—I’m directionally challenged.)

But back to these bars. They’re really easy. It’s a very simple, very buttery and vanilla-y shortbread base that comes together in a snap. And the bars are packed full of oozing salted caramel! (If you have vanilla bean paste definitely use that instead of vanilla extract in the shortbread—the base is so simple that the extra vanilla punch from the paste really shines.)

And the salted caramel sauce is premade. As in, from the store. You don’t have to make your own! Life could not be easier than opening a jar of caramel sauce.

If you have a favorite recipe for salted caramel sauce, you can use that. (Or go on Pinterest and use one of the thousands floating around there.) But if not, just buy it. I used Smucker’s but it wasn’t quite salty enough for me so I sprinkled a little more salt on top of the sauce after I poured it into the crust. Feel free to add more or less salt as your own tastes dictate.

This recipe can easily be doubled—I halved the original recipe. Use a 13- by 9-inch pan if you double it. (You should probably double it. These are really, really good.)

Make a batch now, and while they’re baking follow me on the time-sucking glory that is social media. We’ll have so much fun together!

So good. . .