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Who wants to try their hand at candy making?? ME ME ME! I hope you do too because we’re making Homemade Twix Bars.
Bake up a buttery crispy shortbread base, top it with homemade caramel and drench it in perfect milk chocolate, and you’ve got a Homemade Twix bar!
I love to try making homemade versions of store-bought candy, do you?? If you do to check out my Homemade Malted Milk Ball Recipe. It sure is a popular recipe! And I also have this Homemade Candy Cane Bark which is really Polar Bear Bites made at home!
This is another GBBO Bake-Along Bake this time for CARAMEL WEEK. I wrote that in all-caps because I feel like this was an especially tricky week for all the bakers in the tent.
The bakes for Caramel Week 2021 were:
- Signature Bake: Caramel Tart
- Technical Bake: “Caramel Bicuit Bars” AKA Twix Bars
- Showstopper Bake: Multi-Layer Caramel Dessert with a Sugar Dome
We chose the Technical Bake for this week simply because in MY MIND the signature and the showstopper were ALMOST identical bakes. One had to be HIGHLY DECORATED with a sugar dome over the top.
Homemade Twix Bars
These Twix bars are essentially a Millionaire Shortbread Cookie. But made separately in bars NOT cut into bars after being baked and chilled like a millionaire cookie. Er biscuit.
These have caramel PIPED on, then they’re in chocolate, set cool, and then poured over with chocolate. And THEN drizzled with chocolate.
What do I need to Make Homemade Twix Bars?
- heavy cream
- milk chocolate
- sugar
- butter
- cornstarch
- flour
- piping bag
- parchment paper OR foil to lift the baked cookie out of the loaf
My thought’s on this GBBO Twix Bar
This is one of THOSE recipes, like these Walnut Whirls. One of those recipes that just don’t quite work, it took a LOT of finagling to ALMOST make them work. As it is written it hardly works. AND the measurements are iffy. And I find that ANNOYING.
There are almost TOO few ingredients for the caramel to ACTUALLY come together. And because of that fact, the mix barely has the ability to HEAT up enough to get to that caramel setting stage it really needs to get to before it scorches.
Use the smallest pan you have and work slowly. I know they tell you NOT to stir caramel but I ended up stirring the very small amount of ingredients JUST to keep the liquid from boiling away BEFORE the sugar even started to turn to caramel. Ask me how many scorched batches I made…no never mind don’t!
In Paul’s recipe, it says to set the pan of caramel in a basin of ice and water to stop the cooking process. That’s NOT necessary. If you do it your little bit of caramel won’t be hot enough to incorporate the cream AND BUTTER. Remove it from the heat, carefully add the cream and let it boil up as it does. Whisk in the butter and stir until it’s smooth.
Also, the time given to the bakers was not long enough, the caramel has to COOL for an hour AND THEN GO IN THE FRIDGE until it’s thick enough to set up. They weren’t given enough time and I find that unfair.
Let’s talk about the BISCUITS. Made in a loaf pan it’s SO hard to get out of the pan. The bakers just flipped theirs over Paul’s recipe actually says line the pan with baking paper. I broke several batches trying each way and the least traumatic was the lined pan and just easing it out. If you lift it while it’s warm and it bends/breaks you’ll be George in the tent.
So you STILL Want to make these things?? OK here’s how I FINALLY got it to work. And that’s what I spent the entire day today doing, making. this. work.
Homemade Twix Bars
Fresh caramel, chocolate, and a shortbread base make these Homemade Twix Bars a hands-down favorite. Please be sure you've read the notes in the full post for all my tips, tricks, and thoughts on this recipe.
Ingredients
Caramel
- 1 TBSP dark corn sryup
- 7 1/4 TBSP Sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 3 3/4 TBSP unsalted butter
Shortbread Base
- 3 1/2 TBSP butter, softened
- 2 TBSP sugar
- 7 1/16 TBSP all purpose flour
- 3 1/3 TBSP cornstarch
Chocolate topping
- 12 ounces milk chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- make caramel, stir the corn syrup and sugar together
- place a small heavy-duty pan over low heat and scrape the sugar mixture into the pan
- let it slowly cook and shake the pan as needed, if you think the mix is starting to burn remove the pan and let it cool
- stir occasionally as needed to keep the mix from burning
- once the sugar melts and begins to darken being careful to keep it from burning but also let it cook so it will actually set up, I whisked it at this point to keep it from scorching
- once it's darkened remove it from the heat and pour the cream and butter in and whisk smooth
- pour into a bowl to cool, let it cool 60 minutes THEN pop it in the fridge to get hard (note it won't get hard unless you've cooked it long enough)
- make the shortbread base by mixing the butter and sugar together then add the flour and cornstarch
- line an 8x4 loaf pan with parchment or foil and pat the dough into the pan, chill 20 minutes
- preheat the oven to 350˚
- poke the chilled shortbread dough all over with a knife
- bake the shortbread in the preheated oven for 10-13 minutes or until the shortbread is set and lightly browned
- once baked let it cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a baking sheet
- cut evenly into 10 slices
- but don't move the cookie of the pan
- chill it in the fridge until set hard
- once the cookie base AND caramel base are cooled and the caramel is thickened melt the chocolate in a double boiler over low heat
- once melted take off the heat to keep it from overheating
- dip the bases in the chocolate and lay on a line baking sheet
- cool again
- load the caramel into a piping bag and pipe a line of caramel on top of each cookie base
- put a baking rack over the lined pan and put the cookies on the rack
- put 2 Tablespoons chocolate in another piping bag,
- pour the rest of the chocolate over the cookies, reheat the chocolate as needed, if you want you can put the chocolate in a piping bag and pipe it over the cookies to get better coverage
- chill 5 minutes
- then snip the tip off of the piping bag of extra chocolate
- drizzle over the bars
- chill completely
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Nutrition Information
Yield
10Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 319Total Fat 19gSaturated Fat 12gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 6gCholesterol 31mgSodium 63mgCarbohydrates 36gFiber 1gSugar 31gProtein 3g
This nutrition information was calculated using a computer program, results may vary.
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