Baking Monday (on a Tuesday and Really Really Late) – Caramel Toffee Bars

Special shout out to a good friend who I know will be very excited about this post (hi, Laura!) Yes, I've been gone for awhile. Pool season wrapped up in May, and life got crazy busy. But I do have a small bank of baking pics to post. These bars are kind of a cheaty baked good in my opinion, because it uses lots of pre-processed foods vs. whole ingredients, but tasty nonetheless.



Replace the coconut (bleck) with white chocolate chips (mmm).



Also line the pan with baking parchment to make removal and cutting stress-free (as long as you wait until they are reeeeally cool to dig in)!

Very easy and very yummy. A hit with the littles in our house!

Baking Monday – Peanut Butter Toffee Bars

I've had this recipe saved for awhile, it was originally found in Family Fun magazine. Sometimes I plan ahead for Baking Monday and will purchase specific ingredients, sometimes I find a recipe that works with whatever is on hand. My pantry is usually pretty well stocked with the basics, but somehow I ran out of flour (FLOUR!) this week while the kids were home on break. Shocking, right?



I had bought a bag of toffee chips for last week's bar cookies, so decided to make this recipe with the leftovers. I assumed there were two cups of chips in the bag (like chocolate chips!) until I went to make these, and realized the bag only contained one and a third cups, one which I used up last week. Whoops, time to go through the baking chip bin (yes, I have a bin of baking chips) and find something else small and crunchy to fill in the gap ... mini M&M's!

Which, are admittedly not my favorite, but worked in this case. These bars have a really great peanut butter / shortbread with a little bit of oatmeal crust, spread with a thin layer of chocolate. I didn't measure out how many chocolate chips went on top, but it was way less than the three cups recommended in the recipe, I think that would be way too much. I sprinkled enough just to cover the surface once melted. The rest of the recipe is good as is! Bake in a parchment-lined pan for easier cutting.