Tricky Twix

I found out that Twix are quite tricky to make! I used a copycat recipe and it turned out okay, but the more recipes I make, the more I realize that the name brand candies are really hard to top!! There are essentially 3 layers to a Twix: shortbread, caramel, chocolate. Here's my Twix adventure:

Copycat Twix
Shortbread

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• baking sheet

Caramel Topping

• 1 bag (14 oz) wrapped caramels
• 2 tablespoons milk or cream
• dash salt

Chocolate Topping:

• 12 oz milk chocolate chips

It's so fluffy!

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F with rack in center of the oven. 

2. With a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg & vanilla and beat until combined. Add the flour and salt and beat until the dough just comes together

3. Refrigerate the dough until firm. Roll out the dough or press it into a backing sheet lined with wax paper. Bake for 20-30 minutes, turning the baking sheet front-to-back half-way through.

Cooked shortbread

4. Let the shortbread cool. In the meantime you can unwrap all your caramels place them in a microwave-safe dish with the milk.

5. Microwave the caramels for 1 minute at a time, stirring in between until completely smooth. Then pour the caramel over the shortbread and spread evenly.

6. Allow to cool completely. Cut into your desired shapes (fyi: twix are rectangles :) ) For best results you can freeze the pieces before dipping.

Caramels ready to melt

7. Melt your chocolate in a double boiler or a heat-proof bowl atop a saucepan with simmering water. 

8. Dip the twix pieces and let them set until hardened and enjoy!!

So I found I'm not the best baker...I mis-measured my powdered sugar and didn't realize it until I was almost done!! A half-cup extra powdered sugar never hurt anyone right?? Maybe not, but it did make my shortbread veerrry crumbly and hard to dip!! I also had to keep my bars in the fridge because I haven't quite mastered the tempering technique yet! Here's a helpful link for Tempering Chocolate.

Not the straightest cuts in the world, but "that'll do"

Falling apart :(

All in all, you can't really go wrong with a cookie, caramel, and chocolate mixture so they were pretty tasty, but of course, never as good as a real Twix, which I DID buy just for back-up, and yes I've already eaten it!! Hey, it's research right!?

This was my leftovers
I did not have NEAR enough chocolate to dip them all,
so this is what happened!

Can't even tell the difference :)

Plus, this recipe was fun because I jammed my thumb playing softball this last weekend, so I can't do dishes, but I could sure make a mondo-mess for Matt to clean up!! ;)

ouchie :(

ouchie :(