Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Pretzel Bars are so delicious and easy to make. You’ll love every bite of the tender shortbread and salty pretzels all covered in gooey chocolate caramel. A sprinkle of flaky sea salt balances out the sweetness and brings out the chocolate flavor!
These Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bars have a shortbread base made with crushed pretzels. They’re topped with chocolate caramel and more pretzels!
They taste a lot like Twix bars. In my opion they’re better than a Twix, because they’re so fresh!
For more yummy treats, try my tahini caramel slice, caramel popcorn, and condensed milk brownies.
Why We Love This Recipe
- The tender, buttery shortbread baked with pretzels pressed on top! The pretzels add both saltiness and crunch!
- Just mix the shortbread crust together, press it in the pan. Press about a cup of chopped, crushed, or whole pretzels into the dough before popping it into the oven.
- Chocolate caramel is caramel that has chocolate stirred in it. It’s as gooey and delicious as it sounds.
- Caramel sauce can sound intimidating, but it’s super quick and easy.
- These bars are sweet, gooey, salty, crunchy, chocolatey and delicious!
Expert Tips
- PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. It takes less than ten minutes to make caramel sauce, BUT you do need to WATCH for the sauce to change color so that you know when to add the remaining ingredients.
- BE ORGANIZED. Make sure you have all your ingredients and tools nearby BEFORE you start. You’ll start with the sugar, water and corn syrup, but definitely have the remaining ingredients measured out and next to the stove. I even position my ingredients in the order that I’ll need them so that I don’t have to refer to my recipe to know what to add. Just a little visual clue.
- It’s best to make this shortbread layer since you’ll want to let it cool completely before adding the chocolate caramel.
- KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR. For this chocolate caramel recipe, we want to heat the sugar, water and corn syrup until it’s medium amber. Since people’s ideas of color is different, it’s definitely helpful to have a clear idea of what color you’re going for. Bon Appetit has this cool post on The Caramel Spectrum complete with pictures. It’s especially helpful since we’re not using a thermometer to tell us what stage our caramel is in.
- USE A POT WITH TALL SIDES AND DON’T BE SURPRISED WHEN YOUR CARAMEL HISSES! The hot caramel will definitely bubble up and sputter when you add the cream and butter, so it’s good to expect that. It’s also good to use a pot with tall sides so that you don’t get burned and it doesn’t bubble over.
CUTTING THE BARS
I find it easier to cut the bars when they’re out of the pan. To remove them from the pan, just lift the parchment paper and transfer the bars to a cutting board. Use a long, sharp knife and cut the bars as big or small as you’d like.
Sweet, gooey, salty, crunchy, chocolatey and delicious! These chocolate caramel shortbread pretzel bars are completely homemade and are definitely the perfect treat for any time of the year!
Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Pretzel Bars
Ingredients
FOR THE SHORTBREAD BASE
- 1 ½ cups flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 7 tablespoons cold salted butter cubed
- ⅓ cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar light or dark
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup chopped pretzels
FOR THE SALTED CHOCOLATE CARAMEL
- ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- ½ cup heavy cream room temperature
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter room temperature, chopped
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla
- 3 ounces chocolate dark or bittersweet, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line an 8 or 9 inch square pan with parchment paper with paper hanging over the sides.
- Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed for about a minute until creamy. Add the flour, sugar, egg and vanilla and beat on high for 2 minutes.
- Press dough into prepared pan. Press the pretzels pieces gently into/on top of the dough and bake for 20-25 minutes. Rotate pan halfway after about ten minutes. Place the pan on a rack and cool completely before adding the caramel. You can place the pan in the fridge to speed up the cooling process. Just be sure to place a kitchen towel down so you don’t damage the fridge with the hot pan!
- Prepare caramel.
FOR THE SALTED CHOCOLATE CARAMEL
- In a saucepan with tall sides, stir to combine the sugar, water, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium heat and allow to cook/bubble without stirring. Gently lift and swirl the pan a few times to help the ingredients cook evenly. Cook until caramel turns light to medium amber** (about 8 to 10 minutes) then turn the heat down to low.
- Immediately but carefully add the heavy cream followed by the butter and salt. Remove from heat then add the chocolate and vanilla. The mixture will bubble and hiss with the addition of these ingredients. Stir with a whisk, spatula or wooden spoon until smooth.
- Pour mixture over the cooled shortbread. Top with sea salt and or crushed pretzels. Allow caramel to cool and set before cutting. Pull up on parchment paper to remove from pan. Set bars on a cutting board and use a sharp knife to cut them.
Notes
Nutrition
Please note that nutritional values are created by an online calculator and should only be used as an estimate.
Kim
My sauce just seized up after added cream and butter hardened till i couldn’t stir it. Tried hearing back up but just won’t melt down i followed instructions exactly what went wrong??!!
Natalie
Hi Kim, I’m so sorry the sauce seized up. Unfortunately I don’t think there would’ve been a way to fix it after it seized up other than starting over. I’m sorry this happened especially after following the instructions exactly. My guess was that the sugar was not actually caramelized before you added the other ingredients. I haven’t heard of this happening with this recipe before, but I will add a temperature to the recipe as I know it’s not easy to identify the stage by color alone.