For Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be fun for Matt and me to make a homemade version of one of his favorite candies, Twix Bars. I’d seen a ton of great-looking recipes around the blog world and thought it would be a good idea to take ideas from them but make my own version. You can see different examples of homemade Twix Bars on Mangio Da Sola, Hoosier Homemade, Chocolate and Carrots, and Not Without Salt.
I started with the Mangio Da Sola shortbread crust, easy enough
I thought that using packaged caramels would be a really easy shortcut for the middle layer; I guess I forgot how hard they get so quickly
Topped the caramel with salt, because I am kind of obsessed with that combination
And then melted milk chocolate; here you really can’t go wrong
The first problem was getting the bars out of the pan; the shortbread was too crumbly and cutting through the caramel was tough
I think a foil-lined pan would have been better
These would have been so much better with a layer of caramel sauce or filling, instead of melted caramel candies (unless breaking a tooth is your goal)
We tried to eat them but it just wasn’t worth it, I may have eaten the entire layer of milk chocolate off the top… wasting chocolate is just wrong!
Have you had any desserts gone wrong recently?
Aww , i know exactly what u say and i have jus discovered the craft caramels:-)
Thannnk God i realized , in my dancing with my first ever pack , that these get hard and use them with shortbread filling , with a shortbread tart but melted with cream and butter and vanilla and rum…
U still have these , maybe warmed up ,slowly with lite cream , and butter , u could make a filling of this ?
Super cute thought though:-)
http://brightmorningstarsfoodie.blogspot.com/
Yeah I think melting those caramels and mixing them with cream would definitely be much better. It was really good in this recipe: http://keepitsweet.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/buttery-caramel-goodness/
I bet it all still tasted just fine. If you still have it around, you could take the remaining stuff, crumble it up, and eat it with ice cream or yogurt.
I had some florentine cookies come out terribly last weekend. And a month ago, I burned some carob cookies.
Oh, that is such a good idea! I got rid of what was left because I was afraid I’d just eat it all even though I didn’t like it lol.
Were you trying to cut & eat them out of the fridge? I bet it would be OK at room temp, unless reheating the caramel made it a harder caramel? I’ve made these bars (millionaire bars) and just used a can of dulce de leche. Sooo good–you have to try them again! I usually don’t have dessert mishaps but have plenty of cooking mishaps. The last one was cream sauce I made to with with shrimp and spaghetti squash. I didn’t have milk and thought that I could make my own with milk powder. The taste still gives me nightmares.
They were room temperature… The caramel was still difficult to eat. I bet dulce de leche would be the perfect consistency. Where do you find that?
Oh no! So sorry they didn’t turn out. They look yummy though.
~Liz
Thanks, I’ll have to try your recipe next time. It really does look delicious, especially since you use peanut butter.
It was a good idea! I’ll bet lining the pan with foil or parchment paper and using a caramel sauce will make it perfect!
So glad to hear you didn’t waste the chocolate!! I have ruined a dessert recipe before – It happens to all of us :) Just means you’ll have to try again!
sorry these didn’t work out -they definitely sound amazing!
I tried making toffee once and just ended up with a sheet of burnt butter :(
That looks great. I love love twix.
Bummer when things like that don’t work out, but you made a good go of it. And nice job not letting that chocolate go to waste!!
I’m so glad you ate the chocolate layer on top. It makes me feel less weird for doing things like that.
I’m so sorry these didn’t work out! I hate putting lots of time and energy into a recipe to then have it flop. I tried to make Smitten Kitchen’s pumpkin brownies a few months ago and the brownie layer was disgusting. I had to scrape it off and top the pumpkin part with nutella frosting to make them edible.
Oh wow, that sounds like such a bummer too! Nutella frosting sounds like a perfect solution!
Hi! Sorry your Twix attempt didn’t work out. Trust me, you are not alone. I’ve had TONS of desserts not work. Actually, too many to even mention!
You can make your own dulce de leche by putting a can of condensed milk in a pot of simmering water. It will take about 3-4 hours, but its totally worth it. Just make sure the water is a few inches above the can, or the can can explode. Its never happened to me, but I’ve heard stories.
Oh wow, I have never tried that! I have a few cans of sweetened condensed milk:-)
Unfortunately I have recipes go wrong pretty frequently. I still post about them though because I think that the learning experience and feedback that I get is really important. Some of the best recipes I have ever made have been the pure result of trial and error. Thanks for sharing with us and I look forward to seeing your perfected twix bars!
It’s pretty upsetting when recipes don’t work out the way you intend them to. The concept of this candy bar sounds great and I’m sure when you give this a try the next time with a few tweaks it will be a home-run :o)
Oh no! Too bad these did not turn out as planned…they look delicious though! ;)
I love the idea of this! Twix is one of my favorite candy bars too. I think trying it with the caramel sauce is definitely worth a shot :)
I love that you ate the chocolate off the top, I totally would have done that too! Good to know about the caramels not really being a shortcut, but homemade twix does sound so good!!
I had some muffins go overboard: http://spicedplate.blogspot.com/2011/01/heres-what-happens-when-you-dont-use.html
I don’t have a muffin pan (although my tax refund is making me browse around at kitchen stores!) and was told by the box of muffin cups that they could be used without a pan — so I tried it…but my muffins were too much for the paper cups to handle…it turned out more like a moist scone, and was still delcious!
That is really funny! Looks like yours still tasted good:-)
Even though you say these went wrong they still look awesome!! Gooey caramel sauce will be perfect next time ;)
That is such a bummer! They do look yummy though :) It happens to the best of us!
Well, I think they totally look like Twix! But I can see what you mean about the caramel being hard. I always find the second time I do things, it works much better!! And I LOVE that you tried to make Twix :)
Hmmmm….maybe you could try parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan. They look delicious though.
When working with caramel its hard to get the right consistency.. at least that’s what I’ve found! I had some caramel filled cookies fail miserably during the Christmas season. Your cookies sound delicious- now you just have an excuse to make more batches and tweak them :)
So true!
Maybe cutting the short breads out before adding the caramel and chocolate would have worked better.
Yes! Last week I made devil’s food cupcakes planning on decorating them with swiss meringue frosting. I didn’t bother looking through the recipe because I assumed it would be pretty straightforward. Bad move. Turns out swiss meringue is pretty hard to make and requires some precise temperature testing. I have yet to buy a candy thermometer so I had to scrap that recipe. I was still pretty set on making these cupcakes and I had the beginning forms of meringue frosting that I didn’t want to just throw away. So I decided to make a simply vanilla frosting, how could that go wrong? Well I looked up an easy recipe, and then used my beginnings of frosting as a base to add more confectioners sugar and vanilla. And I managed to mess that up as well (my sister liked it, but I thought it tasted too sweet and fake).
The next day I had a batch of unfrosted cupcakes and nothing to do with them. I did some searching for ideas and decided on a simple peanut butter frosting, to end this cupcake fiasco. I followed the recipe to a T, but when I got a few steps in it was much dryer than it should have been. I figured this was because I had used a pretty dry, organic peanut butter. So I added a bit more heavy cream than it called for, and then a bit more. When it finally started to resemble frosting, I went to frost the cupcakes. And that was when I realized that the consistency was all wrong. It was too grainy (more like peanut butter than frosting) and it was sort of, for lack of a better word, wet. It was bad. I went back to look at the recipe and read it word-for-word to see what I had missed. Butter. The way the recipe was written butter came right after peanut butter and was on the next line so I read as part of the word peanut butter and completely overlooked it.
I took a deep breath and tried the recipe again, and it FINALLY came out right. It was really good, and made for some really pretty cupcakes, but it took a lot of failure to get there!
You get the award for longest comment ever:-) Those cupcakes sound delicious even if it took you a few tries to get them that way!
I hate when that happens…it’s so sad because you have high expectations. I have had so many baking projects go awry. :)
Oh man, that’s too bad . . . and the pictures make it look so lovely and delightful, too!
I haven’t had desserts go wrong lately, but I did put up a post last week on my blog about my recent culinary failures (including a disgusting, greasy ravioli, a weird-tasting Thai curry, and sad sad versions of mac and cheese, to name a few).
Haha aw, good to know I am not alone!