Dulce de Leche Oat Bars from The Sparrow's Home

Dulce de Leche Oat Bars - made June 7. 2024 from The Sparrow's Home 

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups oats

1 can dulce de leche

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 9-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla; beat to combine.
3. Add baking soda, salt, flour and oats, mixing until just combined.
4. Press half of the mixture in the bottom of prepared pan. 
5. Place dulce de leche in a microwave-safe bowl and heat until just spreadable, 30-45 seconds.
6. Spread dulce de leche in an even layer over oat layer, leaving a small border around the edges. Drop small pieces of remaining dough over the dulce de leche, pressing in gently.
7. Bake for 23-28 minutes, until top is golden brown. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

When I send out care packages to deployed military service members, I typically do a combination of brownies and various types of cookies. Summertime gets a little more tricky as I'm often sending it to desert-climate countries in triple-degree heat so whatever I send has to withstand extreme temperatures and long mailing times. 

Brownies typically still work fine as long as you don't do any cream cheese-type mixins. Dairy doesn't do well in high temps. I'm hoping dulce de leche does do well, although it's dairy, being that dulce de leche is caramelized sweetened condensed milk. I've been able to successfully send magic cookie bars which has sweetened condensed milk as a topping so fingers crossed that dulce de leche also holds up.

This is an oat bar with dulce de leche as a layer. You make the oat bars, spread half as the bottom layer, cover with dulce de leche then "crumble" the rest of the oat mixture on top. This is one bar cookie you don't want to underbake as part of the texture comes from baking it long enough for the oat topping to get a little crunch. Which then pairs nicely with the smooth creaminess of the dulce de leche.  

I thought this turned out pretty well as the sturdiness of the oat bar perfectly complemented the creamy sweetness of the dulce de leche. It does get slightly messy as the dulce de leche doesn't "set". It remains creamy. The advantage of dulce de leche over caramel is that the texture doesn't change when exposed to heat. Caramel can set and become hard or too chewy when exposed to baking heat but dulce de leche fares better. It doesn't necessarily make for the cleanest slices though so you may want to chill the whole bar before cutting if neatness matters to you.