How to Make Homemade TWIX Bars

What are your favorite Halloween candies? With the celebrated candy-filled holiday just around the corner, the editors at The Daily Meal mused on what sugary classics our Halloweens wouldn't be complete without. While many were oohed and aahed over, the TWIX bar kept coming up as one we loved the most during our trick-or-treating years.

Click here to Learn How to Make TWIX Bars and More of Your Favorite Halloween Candy at Home

The TWIX bar was introduced in the U.S. in 1979. Although very little is recorded about the TWIX bar's history, few can argue about its loveable traits - a crunchy, shortbread cookie topped with caramel and slathered in chocolate is hard to resist. Though each serving has 12 grams of fat and 250 calories, TWIX is an unmistakable favorite because you get not one but two candy bars with each purchase.

Click here to Learn How to Make Fast-Food Favorites at Home

This candy, while enjoyed all year long, defines the Halloween season for many, and is one of the favorites to snag from a trick-or-treat bowl above other sugary treats. As the Cook editors at The Daily Meal always do, we wondered what went into making TWIX bars and challenged ourselves to see if we could use our expertise to create this goodie at home. With the help of Alexis Murphy of Jac o' lyn Murphy, we learned that they were not only fun to recreate, but easy, and maybe even better than the original. We hope this recipe brings you a very happy Halloween and even better, saves you a trip to the store.

Baking
The most loveable part of the TWIX bar, the cookie, requires a little baking to recreate the candy. We worked off a traditional shortbread recipe and poured the batter into a glass baking dish to get a flat, even surface. Because this isn't the norm with baking shortbread, we poked holes on the surface to allow steam to escape while baking.

The Caramel
Everyone loves the caramel in a TWIX bar, and because of this we figured that there had to be a little extra something to it. Rather than just melting regular caramel, we mixed it with heavy cream to get an ultra-rich caramel filling.

The Results - Homemade TWIX Bars Recipe
- Anne Dolce, The Daily Meal

Testing proved that our bars tasted just about as close as you can get to the real thing, and even better, they were almost double the size and cost less than half of the price of store bought TWIX bars.

The combination of shortbread cookie, creamy caramel, and chocolate is what makes TWIX bars so loveable today. This recipe takes extra measures to ensure that it replicates the timeless candy in its entirety. Many thanks to Alexis Murphy of Jac o' lyn Murphy for helping to develop this recipe.

INGREDIENTS
• Nonstick cooking spray
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 16 ounces soft caramels
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 12 ounces milk chocolate, chopped

DIRECTIONS
For the shortbread layer:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Spray a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder; set aside. In a stand-mixer, beat together the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined. Slowly beat in the dry ingredients until the dough is dry and firm. Press into the baking dish and pat firmly so that the dough fills every corner. You want the dough to be about ½-inch thick. Using a fork, poke the top of the shortbread dough all over with holes. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the top is golden brown. Let cool and set aside.

For the caramel:
Heat the heavy cream in a medium saucepan until just simmering. Add the caramels and slowly stir until they are all melted. Season with salt and pour the caramel mixture over the shortbread, making sure to spread it around so that it coats the shortbread layer evenly. Allow the shortbread and caramel layers to cool for about 20 minutes, or until the caramel has hardened. Once cooled, cut the caramel-shortbread sticks into 8-by ½-inch sticks. Carefully remove the shortbread layers from the baking dish and lay out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to prepare for coating.

Using a double-boiler, melt the milk chocolate until silky and smooth. Taking each caramel-shortbread stick, dip the bottom side (the shortbread side) into the melted chocolate. Place the stick onto the baking sheet and then carefully spoon the melted milk chocolate over the top so that all sides of the caramel-shortbread stick are completely coated. Coat the rest of the caramel-shortbread sticks and let them cool in the refrigerator until the chocolate is hardened, about 30 minutes.

SERVING SIZE
Makes 24 bars

Click here to Learn How to Make More of Your Favorite Halloween Candy at Home

- Anne Dolce, The Daily Meal

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