64 Caramel Squares

I have the world's best Mother-in-law.

I'm not kidding. She's fantastic! (For the record, so is my Mom. Hi Mom!)

I always hear stories of people complaining about their in-laws and that is just not the case here. I only have one complaint about my mother-in-law:

She makes me fat.

Okay, that's not entirely true, since I am an adult and choose what and how much of something I put in my mouth, I really can't blame her. It's just that everything she makes tastes A-MAZE-ING.

Truly.

And since we only visit every so often, when I'm there, I tend to indulge.

A lot.

We spent 10 days visiting the in-laws for Christmas and I think it would be fair to say that this is the first time I have gained weight while nursing a baby. I didn't think it was possible (need I remind you of Kate's thighs?). She proved that it is.

I filled pages and pages of recipes that I wrote out while I was there and I'm still no where near having all of my favourites from her kitchen.

So in tribute to the yum that comes from my mother-in-law's oven, I present you with this recipe. And hopefully after tasting these, you will understand just a smidgen that was my yummy Christmas.

You need to make these.

Like now.

Unless of course you made a resolution to lose weight.

I obviously didn't.

64 Caramel Squares

64 (14oz) individually wrapped caramels

1 cup evaporated milk

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups oats

1 ½ cups lightly packed brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups butter, softened

1 (300g) baker's semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)

1 cup walnuts, chopped

Melt caramels and evaporated milk together on low heat, stirring until smooth. Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda and salt in LARGE mixing bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Press half of mixture into 15x10-inch jelly roll pan or 2 9-inch square cake pans. Bake at 350 for 5 minutes. Sprinkle chocolate chips and walnuts evenly over baked crust. Pour caramel mixture on top. Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture. Bake 15-20 minutes longer or until golden. Cool and cut into bars.

I'm linking up to: