These little bites are small but mighty. They may look like they’ll leave you wanting, but then you do the math. Butter + oats + caramel sauce + pecans? That’s a lot, and a plate of these is guaranteed to make a party full of very happy people. Or one happy person sneaking another out of the tin at midnight, which is how it usually goes in my house. And that caramel sauce? You’ll have some leftover to drizzle on, well, everything.

With inspiration from The Comfort of Cooking’s Soft ‘n Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars and Nestlé’s Original Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Ingredients

For the bars

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 c) butter, melted and slightly cooled
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla

2 c flour
1 c rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 c pecans, chopped

1/2 c caramel sauce, divided

For the caramel sauce

1 c sugar
6 Tbsp butter, cut into smallish chunks
1/2 c heavy cream
1 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line an 8×11 inch baking dish with parchment paper. (If you don’t have parchment, the cookies may stick a bit; spray with a cooking spray to help with that.)

First make the caramel sauce:

In a large saucepan, heat the sugar over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a spoon or whisk. The sugar will begin to clump; this is normal, and eventually it will begin to melt. Continue stirring until all sugar is melted, and the melted sugar turns a light amber color.

Immediately add the butter and whisk to combine (it’s okay if a little melted butter continues floating on top, but it should be mostly incorporated).

Add the cream and stir to combine. (Be careful: the caramel will bubble and hiss dramatically when you add the cream.) Cook for about a minute, then remove from heat. Set aside to cool until lukewarm, at least 15 minutes.

Now make the bars:

In a large bowl, combine the melted butter, both sugars, eggs and vanilla; whisk until the mixture lightens slightly.

In another bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and pecans.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir to combine. The mixture will be very thick.

Add a 1/2 cup of caramel sauce to the dough bowl in two portions. (Dividing the sauce helps to leave some pockets and swirls of caramel.) When you add each portion of sauce, stir to incorporate the sauce, but don’t try to make it all even; again, we want some swirls.

Turn the dough out into the prepared baking dish, and use your fingers to press it into an even layer. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the center of the pan is no longer wet and the edges have begun to pull away from parchment slightly.

Let cool in the pan completely, then lift out the parchment to transfer the bars to a cutting board. Cut into 1-inch squares and try to save some for everyone else. (Good luck.)

Options

Pan size: If you don’t have an 8×11 inch pan, you could make these in the more common 9×13 pan. In fact, that’s what most bar cookie recipes call for. (I went for the smaller pan because I find it aggravating to have to spread the dough out that far, and I like the thick cubes of cookie I get this way.) If you do use the larger pan, you’ll want to keep an eye on the bars to make they don’t turn crispy; twenty minutes is probably the upper limit, and I’d check at 15 or 18.

Storebought caramel: The caramel sauce is way more simple than you might expect, so I encourage you to try it out, but you can absolutely use a store-bought caramel sauce. Look for one that comes in a jar and is fairly goopy at room temperature, rather than a thin squeeze-bottle version.

Butter content: I’ve made this caramel sauce with anywhere from 4 to 6 Tbsp of butter, and it works anywhere in there. The end result is a little stiffer with the smaller amount of butter, which makes no difference in the bars…

… But it does make a difference in what you do with the leftovers. See, you’re going to have about a half-cup of leftover caramel sauce, and oh my goodness. That stuff is — it’s — woof. It’s crazy good. And you could do all sorts of things with it: drizzle it on popcorn, dip some apples in it, eat it with a spoon. But my favorite thing is drizzling it on ice cream, and here’s where the butter content is crucial. A batch with 6 Tbsp of butter thickens on the ice cream, but is still identifiably a sauce. A batch with 4 Tbsp of butter turns into a hard candy coating. Fortunately, I like caramel candy, so I’ll eat it either way. But honestly, if you’ve got the two extra tablespoons around, just go with the full amount of butter. You’re already making a caramel sauce; this is no time to be persnickety about fat.

Chocolate chips: And yes, of course you can add chocolate chips. I’m a contrarian, but who am I to stop you: go big or go home, right?