Carmelitas

I've been having a hankering to bake something since we've been here, but I've scarcely allowed myself to do so because I know myself too well.  My name is Lauren, and I'm a binge eater.  ("Hi, Lauren!")  If I bake something and have nowhere to take the baked item or no one to give it to, I will demolish it within the afternoon.  SO...I was overjoyed and delighted when Drew said that the girls on his particular job love baked goods and have been asking for them.  Perfect!  Someone to give the baked goodness to!  I rose to the challenge, searched my Pinterest boards for delicious things I've never made before, and finally decided on these Carmelitas.  Yum city.  And pretty damn easy.

The Cast of Characters: oats, brown sugar, flour, chocolate chips, caramel, baking soda, and butter.  Lots of butter.  

Combine two cups of brown sugar.... 

Two cups of flour...

Two cups of oatmeal/rolled oats/whatever you wanna call them...

Two teaspoons of baking soda...

And stir that up!

Then...you melt 1.5 cups of butter.  Yes, it's a lot.

Mmmmm.  Did I mention these were low-cal?  

Then pour your melted buttery goodness into the dry ingredients.

And stir it up!  Sloowwwwwllllyyyy.  It may seem like the ingredients will never combine but they will.  You just wait.

And they'll eventually look something like this.

Make sure to taste the dough several times to ensure your husband's coworkers are getting the absolute BEST tasting Carmelita possible.

Then press half of the buttery dough into a 9x13" pan.  It didn't say to grease it but knowing what I do now, I would have.

And pop this guy into a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, prep your caramel.  This recipe calls for caramel candies melted down with heavy cream (which I bought) in a sauce pan, but I'll be damned if I didn't look in about 15 different grocery stores and candy shops for PLAIN CARAMELS.  Nowhere to be found.  Much like everything else I ever need in this city.  But no matter!  I found this imitation Carnation Caramel gooey sauce stuff.  Eh.  We'll see. 

So I measured that out - it called for like a cup and a half or something...

And then took my baked dough out of the oven to cool off just a bit.

Then...take your tiny ass bag of chocolate chips (I bought two, so tiny were the bags) and sprinkle those all over the warm dough.

And then take your imitation caramel sauce and spread that all over the dough and the chips.  Kinda messy so you may have to use your fingers.

Next, crumble/sprinkle the remaining half of the dough over the caramel/chocolate layer.   Oooh la la.

Then bake the assembled dish in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

Close up.  YUMMMM.

It requests that you to wait awhile and let the caramel cool and set, but as I am a binge eater, I couldn't.  I dug right in and they were ooey and gooey and chocolatey and caramely I basically had to eat my first helping with a spoon.  

Then I let them cool awhile longer and let them set and they were even BETTER!

Throughout the course of that afternoon, I managed to eat an entire 9" row of these things and make myself completely ill before I had to go to a wine tasting that night.  I chopped those guys up the minute I got home and packed them in a tupperware container for Drew to take to the office the next day - but not before noticing that Drew had eaten almost an entire row while I was wine-tasting.  And he's not even a binge eater!  I guess they were just THAT GOOD.  So if you have any self control, go ahead and make these today.  And if you don't, go ahead and make these today and then take them to your place of work or a neighbor or ANYWHERE ELSE away from your home.  SAVE YOURSELVES!!

Ok, all this being said/written, I'm going to the gym.  Happy almost Friday!