Salty-Sweet Carmel Nut Bars - by Lisa

Man, I am just having a hard time baking this week. Fortunately my goof up in last week's recipe didn't do any noticeable harm. Sadly, I wasn't so lucky this time around. This recipe was one of my picks and I was really excited to try it out! I love caramel, and I LOVE salted caramel and I figured this one was a sure thing for my sweet tooth. Due to my own inattention to detail (which really is particularly unusual for me most of the time) and hustle through the grocery store, I picked up a can of LIGHTLY salted mixed nuts which also apparently contain "50% less peanuts." *sigh* To add insult to injury, I made a double batch as I am planning to take these to a Super Bowl party today. I didn't notice the labeling on the can until it was far too late. When I took my first bite of the finished product, I found the texture to be lovely, but the flavor was quite bland. :( But Hubby had the brilliant suggestion to dust some coarse sea salt over the top, and when I did that the flavor was noticeably improved! Hurray!

All right, kvetching aside, this recipe was super easy to make. I was nervous about the caramel part as I've never had good luck with making caramel, but that part was really easy. I also finally busted out my new digital kitchen scale and used that for measuring the flour. Fun!

As for the nuts, I wound up using my easy chopper but probably should have stuck with the recommendation of using a chef's knife. Some pieces got smaller than needed and others didn't chop up at all (I'm looking at you, Almonds.).

I also timed the whole process fairly well which meant I didn't run into any issues during the 4 hour cooling process. I definitely want to give this recipe another shot, and next time I will make sure I am using the right kind of salted mixed nuts!!!!