Name: Strawberry Caramel Crumble Bars
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: 1 cup brown sugar; 1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk; 1 stick butter; 1 1/2 cup rolled oats; 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour; 1 cup coconut sugar (SO good but you can sub brown sugar, too); 1/2 tsp baking powder; pinch of salt; 3/4 cup melted butter; 1 3/4 cup strawberries, cut into chunks (About 12 medium strawberries)

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Ummm how many times have I said I have a new favorite dessert this summer? Too many to count. Let me introduce you to the newest in a never-ending line of favorites: Strawberry Caramel Crumble Bars! Classic crumble dessert bars with a layer of fresh, summer strawberries and a hefty drizzle of the quickest homemade caramel – SO good.

This recipe was the result of three things: A very bored girl, a dessert craving, and a fridge with some random ingredients that needed to get used up!

This Beautiful Caramel Situation

This caramel situation was born out of the random fridge ingredients. AKA – I opened a can of sweetened condensed milk thinking “Oh yea, I’m going to drink coffee in the mornings this week, and I’ll put some of this in it, and it’s gonna be great!” Guess how many times I did that. Once. HA! But it all worked out because I learned you can make a super easy stovetop caramel sauce with CONDENSED MILK, butter, and brown sugar.

Is that not the most scrumptious thing you’ve seen all day? This recipe makes enough caramel for two batches of these bars SO you have a few options here:

Halve the caramel recipe, and use the remaining half of your can of sweetened condensed milk as coffee creamer (so good!)
Double the bar recipe using a 9×13 pan and use the full amount of caramel
Make the full caramel recipe, and use the remaining half for general eating, merriment, and dipping of fruit!
Make the full caramel recipe, the regular amount of these bars AND save the rest of the caramel in your fridge until Friday, when I’m sharing a super special caramel-filled cookie recipe that uses the SAME caramel

Make sure to store any leftover caramel tightly covered, in the fridge! It lasts for about a week.

This Crumble Crust Situation

Crumble bars are some of my VERY favorite desserts to make, for one main reason – the crust and the topping are made in the SAME BOWL. Like, what?! Whoever invented this concept deserves an award. We’ve got the usual suspects here – flour, baking powder, oats, and butter. We’ve also got one special ingredient here – coconut sugar! It’s like the tastier cousin of brown sugar. If you’ve never tried coconut sugar, now’s the time! Even if you don’t like coconut, I’m confident that you’ll like this. It has a delicious, rich flavor without being overly sweet.

So, whisk up those dry ingredients, melt your butter, and give it all a good mix. Boom – crust and caramel are done! All that’s left is to chop some strawberries, and assemble your bars! We’re going to bake 2/3 of the crust mixture in a pan first to get that nice base layer, then we’ll add our strawberries, caramel, and the remaining crumble for the topping. A little more bake time, and you’ve got yourself some addictingly-delicious bars.

How addicting? Enough so that I made these bars THREE times in less than two weeks. They were loved, and gobbled up, by Grant, myself, my family on the 4th of July, and our bible study! Even Grant – who hates strawberries – was going back for seconds and thirds of these bars.

If that’s not a testament to how good these are, then I can’t even help ya ?. Make these for all your summer snacking/craving/potluck/backyard grill-out needs! Make them for your neighbors, too. They’ll love you forever.

Happy Baking, friends! Thanks for being part of this yummy food community ??

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