Oatmeal Carmelitas

On Saturday night we had our friends Jake and Amber over for dinner and a game of 'Battle of the Sexes'. We ate pizza for dinner and then for dessert I made Oatmeal Carmelitas. I had had these once before and had forgotten about them until I stumbled across the recipe the other day. They are so yummy. I don't like to cool mine as the recipe suggests but prefer to serve them warm with vanilla ice cream and this time I even made some homemade caramel sauce and drizzled it over the top. Heavenly!

All that being said while I was making these I let my gluttony get the best of me. The recipe makes enough for a 9X13 pan and since there was only going to be the four of us eating it I halved the recipe and made mine in an 8X8 pan. I didn't however halve the amount of caramel in step 3 thinking that having double the caramel would be sooo good. While they were still good, the caramel in the middle sort of erupted and so the bars ended up being more of a gooey caramel/chocolate mess. Tasted great but wasn't pretty. So the pics below are not mine! Next time I'll be good and stick to the recipe!


Oatmeal Carmelitas
from Pillsbury


2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups margarine or butter, softened (I used butter)

1 (12.5-oz.) jar (1 cup) caramel ice cream topping
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used Milk chocolate chips)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I omitted nuts this time)

Heat oven to 350°F.
Grease 13x9-inch pan.

1-Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. In large bowl, combine all crust ingredients; mix at low speed until crumbly. Reserve half of crumb mixture (about 3 cups) for topping. Press remaining crumb mixture in bottom of greased pan.
Bake for 10 minutes or until light brown.

2-Meanwhile, in small bowl, combine caramel topping and 3 tablespoons flour; blend well.

3-Remove partially baked crust from oven; sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts.
Drizzle evenly with caramel mixture; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.

4-Return to oven; bake an additional 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. The original recipe calls to cool these for 1 hour or until completely cooled but I love mine warm served with vanilla ice cream.