Chocolate Chip Caramel and Pecan Turtle Cookie Bars

turtle cookie bars on parchment paper with ice cream scoop full of pecans, caramel pieces and chocolate chips around, with small white flowers and wooden bowl of salt beside

Chocolate Chip Caramel and Pecan Turtle Cookie Bars

Rich, sweet, gooey, and SO delicious! These Chocolate Chip Caramel and Pecan Turtle Cookie Bars are the perfect cookie to bake all year long. Truly a crowd pleaser!

Course: Desserts

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 25

Cook Time: 28

Total Time: 53

Servings: bars

Calories: 519kcal

Ingredients

2½ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
¾ cup brown sugar firmly packed
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs room temperature
2 cups chocolate chips
1¾ cups chopped pecans
4½ ounces soft caramel chopped

Instructions

Heat oven to 375℉/190℃.
Line an 8-inch x12-inch pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes, scraping bowl as needed.
Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping bowl as needed.
Stir in flour mixture.
Mix in chocolate chips and pecans.
Remove bowl from mixer.
A few pieces at a time, fold in caramel.
Spoon dough into prepared pan.
Press evenly in across bottom of pan.
Bake for 28 minutes, or until done but still soft in the middle.
Allow to cool in pan.
Remove from pan and cut into 12 bars.

Notes

Substitutions:

While we highly recommend using a bittersweet or a dark chocolate for this recipe to help cut down on some of the sweetness, you can use milk chocolate if you don't like the flavor or dark chocolate.
Walnuts, peanuts, or even cashews can be used instead of the pecans!
Homemade soft caramel can be used in place of store-bought.

Expert Tips:

Make sure all of your ingredients are room temperature!
Room temperature is about 70℉/21℃.
Be careful to not over mix the cookie dough.
With the caramel, do NOT place the chopped caramel into a bowl. The best way to do this is to unwrap each caramel, cut it in half on the wrapper, and set it aside. Since it's soft caramel, it WILL stick to itself.
4½ ounces was about 1 cup of caramel. To measure, take wrapped caramels and place them in your measuring cup.
Let the cookies mostly cool in the pan before lifting out. Do NOT try to lift them out while it's still hot. It will fall apart.
You can cut the cookies into any shape you would like!

Nutrition