{Recipe Recap} Peanut Butter Carmelitas

The McHusband was out of town all weekend. ALL. WEEKEND.  Including Sunday. He had to work near Charlotte on Friday then went on to his parents’ house to help them over the weekend, then he stayed to testify on an old case Monday morning.

I used to call these bachelorette weekends, but my single-lady-while-the-McHusband’s-away days are long over.  Now they’re single-mom-while-the-McHusband’s-away days and they are long, but they are mostly good.  I enjoy the quality time with Connor since the weekends are the best time we have to be together.

One thing Connor and I did this weekend was attend a neighborhood picnic on Sunday.  The HOA divided the houses into two categories; one brought a side dish and the other a dessert.  My last name put me in the latter category.  Of course I had to try something new rather than go with a tried and true recipe.  You know I love my guinea pigs!

Lucky for them, my treats were one of the best I’ve ever made.

Peanut butter, Rolos, milk chocolate, caramel?  What’s not to love?

I doubled the recipe so I would have a 9 x 13 pan’s worth.  I did not double the butter though; I used 2.25 sticks and it was plenty.

I also had to adapt the caramel layer. 

Turns out, I didn’t have as much heavy cream as I thought so I looked up some other Carmelita recipes and saw one that used evaporated milk, which I had plenty of.

I loved the crust/crumb topping.  Lucky for me, some of it fell off when I was cutting the bars so I had to be on clean-up duty.

Unfortunately, Connor and I had to leave the picnic before dessert so I don’t know what the general consensus on these was.

Actually, we had to leave before ANY of the food came out.  The grills were just being fired up for hamburgers and hotdogs at 5:15 when it was time for us to say goodbye and head home for bath- and bedtime.

My little party animal didn’t make it halfway home before he was snoozing.

Connor and I are both looking forward to having the McHusband home with us tonight.  I even saved him a couple of bars cuz I know they’re right up his alley.

Hope this helps your week get off to a good start!

{Recipe adapted from here}