Millionaires Cookie Bars!
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Triple chocolate chip cookie bars, with homemade caramel, and a triple chocolate layer… millionaires cookie bars!
Millionaires cookie bars
So, once you know how much I adore everything millionaires related, you will understand why I am so unbelievably obsessed with this new recipe. I just couldn’t resist it. Honestly, these are THE one!
As one of my other main loves in life is cookie bars, the marriage between those, and the caramel and chocolate from millionaires shortbread is HEAVEN in every single bite.
Combination of recipes
So… this recipe, is essentially a morph of several different recipes on my blog already. I can never resist using something that I adore already, such as the caramel from all my other millionaires shortbread, and using it to inspire something else.
I personally find something such as the caramel very easy to make now, but thats because I have made it so many times that I can’t count. Literally, I tried once… and got lost/bored of counting!
Caramel
Either way, for me, its the only caramel recipe I will use for such a traybake any more, which is why it features on so many recipes such as my millionaires brownies, Terry’s chocolate orange millionaires, and my Malteser millionaires.
Often I get messages about ‘what temperature on the thermometer should my caramel get to’, and the answer is I don’t know. I never ever ever do it by temperature, and I have never seen another recipe that does either!
Cookie bars
For the cookie bar section, its also inspired by all my other cookie bar recipes on this blog! I just adore cookie bars. Like, I know it literally is just a batch of cookies baked into a traybake and then cut up, but I just love them!
Something wonderful about cookie bars is that I find them much easier and less faffy to make compared to actual cookies, but also they are just damn delicious!
Other cookie bar recipes
You can tell by all my other recipes such as my Mini Egg cookie bars, Rolo cookie bars or even my Terry’s chocolate orange cookie bars that I adore them so unbelievably much.
You can mostly use all of my cookie bar recipes for cookies instead of the bars, but for this particular recipe, they are a cracker. Who doesn’t want to top their cookie with caramel and chocolate?! Literally my idea of heaven.
I just went for a simple chocolate chip cookie bar for this recipe, just to make it slightly simpler. However, as you can see from my other recipes, it is easy to alternate the chocolate you use in the cookie bars for other flavours!
Chocolate
I went for a mix of milk, white and dark chocolate chips, as I just adore how it looks, but you can use all white, all milk, or all dark! It really is preference based as all my readers are different!
Topping
Finally, for the chocolate topping, I thought I would do a bit of a swirl affect so it could represent the three types of chocolate in the cookie bars, but this is obviously optional as well.
Tin
For this recipe, I use a 9″ square cake tin, which I use for 95% of my other traybake recipes as well! I find 9″ cake tins are the best because it creates the perfect depth of bake!
I hope you all love this recipe as much as I do… ENJOY! x
Millionaires Cookie Bars!
Ingredients
Cookie Bars
- 275 g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp cornflour
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 55 g granulated sugar
- 135 g light brown sugar
- 1 medium egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100 g white chocolate chips
- 100 g milk chocolate chips
- 100 g dark chocolate chips
Homemade Caramel
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 3 tbsp caster sugar
- 4 tbsp golden syrup
- 397 g condensed milk (one tin)
Chocolate Decoration
- 100 g white chocolate
- 100 g milk chocolate
- 100 g dark chocolate
Instructions
For the Cookie Bars
- Preheat your oven to 190C/170C Fan and line a 9x9inch Square tin with parchment paper, and leave to the side for now.
- Whisk/mix the plain flour, bicarbonate, salt and cornflour together so its evenly distributed – leave to the side.
- In a larger bowl, melt the butter. Add in the two sugars, and whisk for about 2 minutes so the sugar starts to dissolve and the mixture is smooth. Add in the egg and the vanilla, and whisk again briefly until smooth. (I used an electric whisk)
- Add in the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips and mix with a spatula until a thick cookie dough is formed.
- Press the mixture into the bottom of the tin. Bake the traybake in the oven for 18-22 minutes, until the top of the cookie bake looks ‘dry’!
- Leave to cool whilst doing the next stages.
For the Caramel
- In a large saucepan pour the condensed milk, unsalted butter, sugar, and golden syrup and melt on a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved – stir frequently to stop anything from catching.
- Once the sugar has dissolved, turn the heat up high and let the mixture come to boiling point and boil for 5-7 minutes stirring constantly so that the mixture doesn’t catch. BE CAREFUL as the mixture is VERY hot and can burn you if it splashes back!
- The mixture will be ready when it has changed to a slightly darker golden colour, and has thickened to a soft fudge texture!
- Pour the caramel onto the cookie bars and leave to set for one-two hours on the side.
For the Chocolate
- Melt your three chocoaltes carefully until smooth - I personally do this in the microwave.
- Drizzle over the caramel in a swirly pattern, or however you fancy, and leave to set fully on the side, or in the fridge.
Notes
- This will keep in an airtight container for at least 1 week – if they last that long!
- **If you struggle to cut your shortbread and tray bakes without the chocolate cracking on top, set it at room temperature rather than in the fridge and it’ll be softer so therefore won’t crack when you cut it!
- Using a tinned caramel in place of making your own, will NOT work. Tinned caramels do not set, so it'll be messy.
- I don't store these in the fridge as it dries the cookie out, but if you want to, you can just beware.
- I use this tin!
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J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
Hi Jane, is it possible to make the caramel using ‘lighter’ condensed milk at all?
Many thanks xx
It can sometimes make a softer set, but otherwise works okay!
Hi Jane.
How can I adapt this recipe to fill a 12 x 8 “ tin?
Most if your recipes are for 9×9 tins but I’ve just started making bigger batches now but unsure how much extra ingredients to add? X
A 12×8″ is about 1.2x the recipe so not much bigger, but still more! Baking time will increase slightly x
Do you wait for the caramel to set before putting the chocolate on ?
Yep, as mentioned on the recipe you leave it to set for 1-2 hours.
Making these for the second week in a row now. They are absolutely delicious. Really easy to follow recipe and thank goodness measurements are in grams and not cups (nothing ever seems to work out well when using cups) ☺️ X
Hello Jane
I love your receipts! I am no baker but lockdown has had a funny effect on me! I have just finished making this, it is now setting! How long do I leave it before I slice it? I have put it in the fridge for an hour but don’t want to leave it too long because of the cookie base. How much longer shall o leave it? Thank you Lisa
Hey! So the cookie base will be fine for quite a while – you store it at room temp once it’s all set so that will make the cookie be okay! I usually leave it in there till the chocolate is completely solid! x
Thank you Jane
One more question, sorry! When I cut them up the caramel squishes out, it’s a bit soft not runny. I set the caramel at room temp and once I put the chocolate on I set them in the fridge before cutting. It was my first time making caramel, did I do something wrong?
Slightly soft caramel just means it wasn’t boiled for quite long enough! xx
I make your reciepes all the time but this is the first time I have had a disaster, I take it I heated my butter to much ? The first problem was that when I added my egg to the sugar and butter it partially cooked some of the egg white, then i panicked and added all the dry mix and chocolate chnks in one go so all my chocolate chips melted so I now have one milk chocolate cookie but now chocolate chunks in it But hopefully it will still taste good 🙈
Hiya! I’m very surprised if the butter was too hot, because after whisking the butter/sugar for 2 minutes, its quite hard for it to be too hot for the egg! Did you definitely mix the butter and sugar for long enough? x
Hi Jane
Can you use thickening granules instead of cornstarch?
I love your recipes so much, got a huge list of all the ones I want to try!
Hiya – I wouldn’t suggest that! The cornflour is different to thickening granules and helps with the texture of the bake. A substitute would be 25g more flour, but the texture can still be different! x
Hi Jane. Just a quick question… could I use salted caramel sauce instead of making the caramel sauce from scratch? I usually use Tesco’s finest salted caramel sauce from a jar? I am super excited to try this recipe!
Thank you
Sophie
Hey – no unfortunately you can’t use ready made caramel – it doesn’t set and it’s a sloppy mess! x
Hi Jane,
Looking to make this tomorrow can you use evaporated milk instead of condensed?
Unfortunately they are not a straight swap – you can apparently make condensed milk from evaporated and sugar though so it’s worth a google!
You could try using rice flour or arrowroot powder
Ugh Jane I don’t even know where to start, this combination is unbelievable and your recipes are so easy to follow I’ve recommended your site to everyone I know! I made these for my boyfriend’s friend and she told him to marry me hahaha, can’t wait to make every other recipe!!
Can you freeze these? 😊
Yes you can!
And is caster sugar the same as granulated sugar?
Caster sugar is just a little finer grain. You could blend it slightly.
Is corn flour the same as corn starch? And what is golden syrup.? Is it like Karo syrup? Karo comes in light (clear) or dark ( brown). Would either work?
Please CONVERT to CUPS & TEASPOONS~ thank You!😊
Hello – I don’t measure in cups as its extremely unreliable and an awful way to measure accurately. I suggest buying a set of digital scales so you can bake all recipes!
So I’m not sure what I did but the caramel is rock hard – can’t cut and it’s more something to suck on than actually chew. I followed your directions, stirred constantly until the color deepened about 5mins in……your picture tho looks like it should be set up but soft enough to chew and mine is definitely not. Has this happened to you previously?
Hiya – this sounds like your heat was too high. Solid caramel is purely because of over heating/boiling, so for 5 minutes it sounds like the heat was too much!
Made these over the weekend and had to comment. They were delicious and looked amazing as well with the multicolored swirl. I had a problem with my caramel separating (as others had mentioned), but Googled the issue and was able to salvage it. Thanks for a great recipe!!