These bars combine four decadent layers to make the most amazing combination of flavors:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
Homemade Caramel
Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache
These flavors work so well together. The crunch of the chocolate sandwich cookies and the chocolate chip cookie dough combined with the creaminess of the caramel and the ganache… you’ll see why everyone who’s tried these is obsessed.
First, you’ll make some homemade vegan caramel. You don’t need any special tools for this, just a little patience!
You’ll start by adding sugar to a saucepan over low-medium heat. Continue to stir this until it begins to get clumpy and starts to melt. Keep stirring as it melts, until it’s completely melty and creamy. This will take a little bit of time, so be patient and don’t be tempted to turn the heat up past medium or the sugar may burn!
Remove the melted sugar from heat and whisk in vegan butter until melted and creamy. Then whisk in vegan creamer until creamy.
Return to low-medium heat and continuously whisk until it begins to get bubbly. Keep stirring and leave on heat for another minute or so.
Finally, remove from heat and whisk in salt and vanilla. You might want to strain the caramel at this stage to remove any crunchy chunks of sugar that remain.
Next, you’ll make a batch of the best no-bake cookie dough. This will be your bottom layer.
Start by creaming together vegan butter, brown sugar, nondairy milk and vanilla. Then add in flour and salt and mix until combined. Finally, add in some nondairy mini chocolate chips.
Easy, right?
For the ganache you just have to melt together nondairy chocolate chips and peanut butter.
To layer these, you’ll press the cookie dough into the bottom of an 8×8 pan. You’ll then top the cookie dough with chocolate sandwich cookies, then caramel, then the chocolate peanut butter ganache.
These require a couple hours of chill time to set. Once they set, slice them into 9 large bars or 36 mini ones.
Just look at those layers. It doesn’t get much better than this!
These will likely be the best bars you’ve ever had.
If you like these, try:
Three Ingredient PB Cookie Dough Fudge
Vegan Cookie Dough Caramel Bars
Ingredients
Caramel:
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup vegan butter
- 2 tbsp vegan creamer we prefer oat or soy
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
Cookie dough layer:
- ½ cup vegan butter
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp nondairy milk
- 1 cup flour*
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup nondairy mini chocolate chips
Cookie layer:
- 18-20 chocolate sandwich cookies
Chocolate peanut butter layer:
- 1 cup nondairy chocolate chips
- ½ cup peanut butter
Instructions
- Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper.
Make the caramel:
- Place the sugar into a saucepan over low-medium heat. Stir often, until the sugar begins to clump and melt. Continue to stir until the sugar melts completely.**
- Remove from heat and add in the butter, whisking until combined. Add the cream and whisk until combined.
- Place back onto low-medium heat, continuously stirring, until it gets bubbly. Stir for another minute or so.
- Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt.*** Set aside while you make the remaining layers
Make the cookie dough:
- Beat the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add in the flour and salt and mix until combined. Mix in the chocolate chips.
Make the chocolate peanut butter layer:
- Add the chocolate and peanut butter to a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals, until melty and creamy.
Assemble the layers:
- Press the cookie dough into the bottom of the prepared pan.
- Line 16 chocolate sandwich cookies evenly across the cookie dough. Break up the remaining cookies and fit them into the empty spaces between the cookies.
- Pour the caramel over the cookies and spread so that it evenly covers the cookies and falls into the spaces between the cookies.
- Finally, pour the chocolate peanut butter layer on top and evenly spread over the caramel.
- Chill for at least 2 hours, then slice into 9 large bars or 36 mini bars.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
Do I need to wait until the sugar starts getting brown before I add the other ingredients for the caramel? Otherwise I don’t see how it can come out that colour if I don’t? Just confused.
The caramel step ruined my pan, although I followed the instructions exactly. Idk if I was supposed to melt the butter before adding it, but the instructions seem to imply it should not be pre-melted. When I added the unmelted butter to the sugar (which had taken 15+ minutes to melt), the sugar immediately solidified into horrible rock-hard clumps that took an additional 15 minutes to melt back down. It never melted back down all the way, so I had to throw it all away, including my pan. Happy Thanksgiving to me.
My family LOVES LOVES LOVES these treats! I followed your directions for the caramel sauce, and it is the best vegan caramel sauce I have tried.
I made these this morning for the first time and absolutely love them the only thing I would do different I would make a double batch of caramel sauce everything else was perfect. For those of you who are having trouble with the caramel put the butter and the sugar in the pan together when the butter melts it will start turning dark and that’s when you can add your cream. This takes about five minutes on medium low. Take the pan off the stove and
Whisk in the cream and vanilla