52 Cookies - Chapter 3

I have been under the weather this week, but on one of the days when I was feeling a little better, I was able to crank out these decadent little hunks of heaven. These babies are heavy and I do mean heavy and once you read the ingredient list, you will understand why. These are not for the faint of heart and certainly don't fit into anyone's New Year's healthy eating plans. Go ahead. Scroll down and see how much butter is in these little gems. Now, pull yourself off the floor and back into your chair. This is another recipe from one of my favorite sources...Marcy Goldman. I pulled this recipe from my "A Passion for Baking" cookbook. Sometimes, a recipe will intrigue me because of one ingredient that's just a bit different. That ingredient this go around is a can of dulce de leche. Let me tell you this. Dulce de leche is not easy to find. And, honestly, I can't recall where I finally did find mine. I couldn't find it at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and I didn't go to a specialty market either. Kroger must have finally decided to stock it in their Latino food section. Now, if I were to make these again, I would add more chocolate. When I made them I thought that one cup of chocolate chips just didn't seem like enough for something that goes into a 13x9 pan. And the "swirl" part of it had me a bit confused because the beautiful food stylist picture in my cookbook shows a true swirl of caramel and chocolate but I don't know how the chocolate is supposed to "swirl" when it's still in the chip form. Regardless, all the good stuff is in there and no matter in what form they are, it's a beautiful combination of yumminess. That is a word, isn't it?!

Caramel Swirl Hunks

2 cups unsalted butter, melted

3 cups light brown sugar

1/3 cup sugar

4 eggs

4 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup quick oats

4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 can (13.4 oz.) dulce de leche

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9 pan with cooking spray. In a bowl, blend the butter and both sugars. Add the eggs, vanilla and oats and blend well. Fold in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then add your chocolate chips. spread the batter in the prepared pan. Now, dollop the dulce de leche on top and then it says to swirl or smear the dulce de leche into the batter. I couldn't get it to "swirl or smear" so I don't know if I was doing something wrong. In my opinion (which doesn't always carry a lot of weight) I would take some melted chocolate and try to do a little swirl/smear action here. Then you go ahead and bake it for about 38 minutes. If the batter seems to be a bit jiggly in the middle, turn your oven down to 325 and give it another 10 minutes and that should do the trick. Refrigerate for about an hour and then you can cut the cookie bars into nice and neat little squares or rectangles. Or, you could do like the recipe implies and just whack off a hunk. No matter what...be sure to have lots of cold milk nearby!