Caramel Snickerdoodle Bars -- The Sweet Close to a Cookie Week Well Spent

The week before Christmas has its own domestic rhythm that I have navigated alone for the years since Helen died but that is not, I have learned, diminished by the aloneness. The house is full in other ways during this week — full of the smell of baking and pine, full of the particular alertness that comes from preparation, full of anticipation for the people who will arrive. I do not experience the week as lonely. I experience it as purposeful.

I drove to Burlington Tuesday for provisions — the things that require a proper grocery rather than the general store, the things that a full Christmas table requires and that I still approach with something close to ceremony. The aged cheddar, the good Dijon, the smoked salmon for Christmas morning, the port and the cream sherry that sit in the sideboard from one Christmas to the next and come out only in December. The drive up through the snow-covered hills was worth the trip on its own terms. Vermont in mid-December is a specific kind of beautiful that has nothing to do with sentimentality.

Sarah called Friday to confirm the arrival time: Christmas Eve afternoon, all four of them. Finn is seven and has reached the age where Christmas morning is at full intensity — the particular combustible mix of anticipation and wonder that a seven-year-old brings to the holiday cannot be manufactured or approximated and simply has to be experienced in the vicinity of one. Teddy, at sixteen, is past peak Christmas morning but is entering a different and in some ways richer version of the holiday — the one where you start to see through the eyes of the younger person and understand what it meant to be that age, which is a form of memory as much as experience.

The third and final cookie Saturday covered the gingerbread and the sand tarts, and the tins are now full. I arranged them on the hall table — three tins, each with a different cookie, the balsam wreath above them, the woodstove radiating in the next room. I made a mug of cider with mulling spices, sat down in the wingback chair, and looked at the table for a while. Thirty-something Christmases in this house. Some of them the hardest I have had and some of the best. This one feels like one of the good ones before it has even happened, which is the best kind of feeling to bring to a holiday.

The third baking Saturday closed out the season — gingerbread and sand tarts in their tins, the woodstove going, the cider mulled — and I found myself thinking that the tins could hold one more thing, something that split the difference between a proper cookie and a something-more. Caramel Snickerdoodle Bars had been on a handwritten card in Helen’s recipe box for years, and this felt like exactly the right Christmas to finally make them: the cinnamon warmth belongs to this week, and the caramel middle is the kind of small extravagance that a holiday baking session earns.

Caramel Snickerdoodle Bars

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 24 bars

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, divided
• 1 cup soft caramel candies (about 30 individual caramels), unwrapped
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the long sides for easy lifting.
2. Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. Beat the softened butter and 1 1/4 cups of the granulated sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then mix in the vanilla.
4. Combine the dough. Reduce the mixer to low and add the flour mixture, stirring just until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix.
5. Make the cinnamon sugar. Stir together the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the cinnamon in a small bowl.
6. Layer the base. Press slightly more than half the dough evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the cinnamon sugar over the surface.
7. Prepare the caramel. Combine the caramel candies and heavy cream in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently, until completely melted and smooth, about 5 minutes. Pour the caramel evenly over the dough layer in the pan.
8. Add the top layer. Drop the remaining dough in small pieces over the caramel and gently press to form a mostly even top layer — some caramel peeking through is perfectly fine. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar and the remaining 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon.
9. Bake. Bake for 28 to 32 minutes, until the top is lightly golden and set at the edges. The center may look slightly soft; it will firm as it cools.
10. Cool and cut. Allow the bars to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack, at least 1 hour. Use the parchment overhang to lift onto a cutting board and cut into 24 bars.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 31g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 115mg