Salted Caramel Bars

 Caramel Sauce (recipe at bottom of this)) + 1 tsp salt, added after removed from heat, while it's cooling

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 sugar

1 tbsp vanilla

2 cups flour

 Make the caramel sauce and set aside. Preheat oven to 325, line an 8 x 8 baking dish with aluminum foil and spray it with cooking spray.

 In a large bowl cream the butter and both sugars together.  Stir in the vanilla.  Add the flour and mix it until a soft dough forms.  Press half of the dough into the bottom of the baking dish and cook for 15 minutes.  Place the other half of the dough in the refrigerator while it's cooking. 

 Remove from oven and pour about 1 cup of the caramel sauce into the baking dish on top of the partially cooked dough.  Take the remaining dough out of the refrigerator and crumble it over the top of the caramel.  Place the baking dish back into the oven and cook for 30 minutes, or until top is firm.  Cool completely before cutting.  I stored mine in the fridge, but you don't have to.

Caramel Sauce 

1 1/2 cups sugar 

1/3 cup water

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

Place water and sugar in medium saucepan on medium-low heat. Cook until sugar dissolves, 5-10 minutes - DO NOT STIR. Turn the heat up to medium and boil uncovered until the sugar turns to a chestnut brown color, about 5-7 minutes (350 degrees on candy thermometer if you have one - I just used my meat thermometer, making sure it didn't touch the bottom of the pan). Swirl the mixture gently every now and then. Watch closely at the end because it will go from caramel to burnt quickly.

Turn off the heat and slowly add the cream (you may want to stand back a little to avoid getting splattered). The cream will bubble violently and the caramel will solidify - don't worry this is normal!

Simmer on medium-low heat, stirring constantly until the caramel dissolves and the sauce gets nice and smooth (about 2 minutes). Allow to cool to room temperature which will take about 4 hours. The sauce will thicken as it cools.