Browned Butter Turtle Millionaire’s Bars

These browned butter turtle millionaire’s bars have a toasty and buttery vanilla bean shortbread crust packed with praline pecans, a creamy vanilla bean caramel center, and are topped with salted chocolate.

These turtle millionaire’s bars are like an elevated homemade version of a Twix bar. And they are suuuuper addicting my friends. They’re easier to make than you might think. The chocolate layer only requires melting, so that hardly counts as work. The caramel comes together really quick in a sauce pan using sweetened condensed milk to make it basically fool-proof. And shortbread is the easiest (but also the tastiest!!?) crust of all time.

You got this! And when you gift these to your friends this holiday season or show up to Christmas with a big ole’ plate of them, everyone will beg you for the recipe and they may just start calling you Martha.

How to Make Browned Butter Turtle Millionaire’s Bars

Make the Browned Butter Shortbread Crust

In a medium sauce pan, brown the butter over medium heat. Let the butter melt, then continue cooking. It will start to crackle and pop. Swirl the pan around occasionally, but there’s no need to stir it. Once the butter starts to foam up and quiet down, it’s ready. Transfer to a glass bowl and let cool completely. You could pop it in the freezer and stir frequently to hurry this process along, or make it the day before.

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a 9X9 baking pan with parchment paper. Leave an overhang of parchment so that you can easily lift the bars out of the pan when you are ready to slice them.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Stir in the cooled browned butter and vanilla bean paste. It will seem crumbly at first, but will come together. Fold in the chopped praline pecans. Press the shortbread into an even layer in the bottom of the pan. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Let cool completely while you make the vanilla bean caramel filling.

Make the Vanilla Bean Caramel Filling

In a medium sauce pan, combine the sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, butter, and honey. Cook over medium heat until butter is melted and everything is combined. Continue to stir and cook until brown sugar has dissolved. This will happen around 210-220 degrees on a candy thermometer. If you don’t have one, you can eyeball it and remove it from the heat once it starts to boil just around the edges.

Remove from heat and stir in the salt and vanilla bean paste. Pour the hot caramel over the shortbread crust and pop in the fridge to set for at least 1 hour. You could also let it sit in the fridge overnight if you wanted to prep ahead to this point.

Make the Chocolate Topping

In a small to medium glass bowl, combine the chopped chocolate and vegetable oil. Place the bowl over a saucepan filled with 2 inches of water. The saucepan just needs to be big enough so that the glass bowl sits on top without the bottom of the glass bowl touching the water.

Heat over medium and stir often until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour the melted chocolate over the caramel and spread into an even layer using an offset spatula. Top with flaky salt. Pop it in the fridge just long enough for the chocolate to set, about 20 minutes.

Lift the bars out of the pan and slice using a sharp knife into 16 bars. For clean cuts, make sure to wipe off your knife between each cut. Serve immediately, or store in the fridge for up to a week!

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Did you love this recipe? If so, make sure to leave a comment and a rating and also check out these other recipes-

• Kitchen Sink Pumpkin Cookies
• Browned Butter Oreo Brownies
• Brioche Cinnamon Rolls