These Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Bars are great to make when you want something fancy, but easy. They have two oatmeal layers, sandwiching a Dulce de Leche layer, which makes for the most amazing texture to sink your teeth into. They are one of our favorite desserts!
Guys. Holy crap. Are you ready for one of my favorite Dulce de Leche desserts, yet? I got the idea after I made these Deep Dish Fudgy Oatmeal Bars, a couple of months back, and I’ve just now gotten around to actually making them. I am drooling right now just thinking about them.
I have to confess – I had to look up the difference between dulce de leche and caramel, while making these. Not because I thought they were the same thing, but they taste similar and I wasn’t sure what the differences were. I know. Total dulce de leche noob. Turns out, dulce de leche is made with sugar and MILK and caramel is made with sugar and WATER. Which, still doesn’t make sense, since my homemade caramels are made with cream and sugar, but whatever I guess. Everything you read on the internet is true, right? So, I’m not going to ask any questions. 😉
All I know, is these taste amazing and you need them in your life.
Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Bars
These Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Bars are great to make when you want something fancy, but easy. They have two oatmeal layers, sandwiching a Dulce de Leche layer, which makes for the most amazing texture to sink your teeth into. They are one of our favorite desserts!
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 15
Ingredients
- 2 cups light brown sugar softened
- 1 cup {2 sticks} butter {I use salted}
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup milk {I use 1%}
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 cups old-fashioned oats
- 2 {14 oz.} cans Dulce de Leche {Found in the Hispanic or baking aisle of most grocery stores}
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
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Cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.
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Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix thoroughly. Scrape down sides as needed.
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Mix in milk and vanilla.
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In a medium bowl, combine salt, baking soda, flour, and oats.
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Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture, 1/2 cup at a time.
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Press 2/3 of the cookie dough into the prepared pan.
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Transfer the Dulce de Leche to a medium, microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 60 seconds, stirring every 15 seconds.
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Spread the Dulce de Leche over the cookie dough in the pan. Top with spoonfuls of the remaining cookie dough. {There won't be enough dough to cover the entire pan, but after it's cooked, it will look nice and pretty with the Dulce de Leche peeking through.}
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Bake for 25 minutes, checking at about the 20 minute mark. If it's getting to browned by then, place some aluminum foil over the top of it.
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Let cool completely before serving, to let the insides firm up. {It tastes better completely cooled, too. The Dulce de Leche is a lot sweeter.}
-Sarah
What size pan did you use for this?
Ah I totally missed it. Nevermind!
I made these for a party on Cinco de Mayo and they were a huge hit! The only thing I’ve done with the few I have left is to scatter chocolate chips along the top and heat it up for about 10 seconds. That’s only because I can never have enough chocolate… Amazing recipe though!
Thank you! I’m glad they were such a hit for you! The chocolate chips are a brilliant idea. In fact, I have a similar recipe with chocolate chips on the top that will be going up in a few weeks. Those melty chips get me every time!! Thanks for trying this recipe and for leaving such a sweet comment! 🙂
Dulce de leche is made by caramelizing a can of sweetened condensed milk. You can do this by boiling he entire unopened can in a pot of water for about 4 hours. Caramel or dry caramel is sugar and water. Caramels or caramel sauces are made with sugar water and cream and usually done in an open pot unlike the unsealed can of sweetened condensed milk.
so I did this and it came out tasty but a little soggy … should have left it in the oven for more time ??
Found your recipe on Pinterest and looking forward to trying it. Dulce de leche is basically cooked sweetened condensed milk, you can make your own by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk for a few hours if you don’t have any. The whole can, unopened. Just FYI, it’s not Mexican, it’s Argentine. Though Mexicans use it occasionally…Argentines use it on everything. The McDonalds and Wendy’s in Argentina even have dulce de leche ice cream and frostys.
These look so delicious!
Yum this looks so gooood! I love Dulce de Leche
These Oatmeal bars looks delicious and yum!
Can I use Quick Oats in this recipe?
Wonderful!!!! Just tried it out. Even made the dulce de lesches myself. Who knew? I only had one can, so halved the recipe. Perfect.
questions: 1…does the dessert itself need to be refrigerated?
2…. how long will a can of sweetened condensed milk turned dulce de leche keep?
Can these be frozen.?
Is the brown sugar packed and the butter softened? Confused by softened brown sugar in the ingredients…. Recipe sounds yummy!!
What type of oats do you use, regular or quick cooking?
I use regular!
Unfortunately I took a chance and made this for a dinner party. This recipe was a complete flop, and such a disappointment since I followed it exactly. The photo doesn’t look anything like the actual bars – and I’m guessing it’s because the photo used the caramel Dolce de Leche you buy in Spanish grocery stores, not the actual canned Dolce de Leche the recipe calls for, which is essentially just sweetened milk, and you can buy it in the baking aisle of your common grocery. There isn’t even caramel color in the canned Dolce de Leche, which was my first concern, so something is very amiss with this recipe. It baked off as a saturated crumble of oats that were overly sweet. There was NO caramel inside texture, nothing that peeked through the topping like you see here, and was just a gross overly sugary mess. Would NOT recommend!!!!
Hi, Rebecca. From your description, I am assuming you used sweetened condensed milk and not dulce de leche. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. Try it with dulce de leche next time and let me know how it goes!
I made this for my son’s rehearsal dinner. Everyone raved about them~ I couldn’t find the canned dulce de leche so I boiled the condensed sweeten milk in the cans. AMAZING!