"Holy Caramel, Batman!!"- Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Bars

 So first off, kudos to the barista that drew this 8-bit wizard character on a chalkboard at Starbucks. Very cool, my friend, very cool.

Not only di it earn my respect, bu it also inspired me to hit the kitchen and bake up something incredibly sweet (the drink has white chocolate, mocha, AND cinnamon dolce. A pinnacle of inspiration!). The dolce part in particular made me crave something in the line of Dulce de Leche. So I traversed the farthest reaches of the internet food-blogger sphere in search of something to quench my desire.

And then I found the Dulce de Leche bars on Brown Sugar Momma's site. They looked super yummy and full of delicious caramel, so I decided to go ahead and make them! Plus, there's oatmeal, so its healthy. Right? Yeah, totally healthy.

Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Bars:

Ingredients-

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cup oatmeal, instant style

1 c packed brown sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 tsp salt

1 13-15 oz can of Dulce de Leche, can be found in your grocery store's Spanish section

1 c butterscotch morsels

Instructions-

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Get out a 13 x 9 in. pan. No need to grease as there is a metric ton of butter in it. Also, grab your preferred drink of the day (I'm still a bad influence).

Abita's Strawberry lager. Tart, fresh, and not too hoppy

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, oatmeal and salt.

3. Cut in the butter. I recommend pre-dicing the butter into smaller bits and using a pastry dough cutter if you happen to have one.

4. Cut in the butter until the mix is crumbly. Then, spread out 3/4ths of the mix into the pan. Bake 10 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, heat up the dulce de leche itself so it can be poured more easily.

Then, eat the remainder that you can't get out of the jar.

6. Spread the dulce de leche over the pre-baked crust. Crumble the remaining oatmeal mixture and sprinkle on the butterscotch morsels. 

The original recipe calls for toffee bits, but I couldn't find them. The butterscotch worked as a pretty good substitute though, so no worries!

7. Bake 20-30 minutes at 350, or until golden brown and bubbly.

Wait for the melted, lava hot caramel to cool, then use a knife to loosen the borders of the bars. Cut into bars and enjoy!

These bars are super chewy and super, super sweet. Probably just as sweet as these candy corn bars I tried out for Halloween last Fall. Those literally gave me too much of a sugar high. And that's nearly impossible (still amazing though!!). Its a good thing I have a willing group of people to eat anything I bake, otherwise all my teeth may have rebelled against me. Grad students never reject free food. Never.

Well, that's about it for today. Gonna go hit the books and try to work on my scarf, if Rosie will let me. Ciao! 

"As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes." - Mel Brooks