These chocolate peanut vanilla caramel bars are composed of a vanilla sablé base, vanilla salted caramel filling and crunchy salty peanuts. Covered with a dark chocolate Sambirano 68% from Felchlin. Sambirano 68% couverture has a very fruity and bitter notes which pair really nicely with the salty and the sweet. 

These bars are a bit of a mix between a snickers and a Twix. With the crunchy base and the soft caramel as well as the crunchy salty peanuts. The dark chocolate coating can of course easily be substituted for milk chocolate if you prefer. Just keep in mind that it will be sweeter in taste. 

105g butter
90g sugar
40g egg yolk
2g salt
145g flour
7g baking powder
2g lemon skin 

Mix the butter, sugar, lemon skin and salt with the paddle attachment until smooth, but not fluffy.

Add the egg yolks a little bit at a time and combine well with the butter mixture. Add in the flour and baking powder and mix until you have a smooth dough. 

pack the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for a couple of hours in the fridge or better overnight. 
Once chilled you can let the dough soften for about 10 minutes before rolling out to about 3mm thick.
Back the dough in your square baking mould (I used about 16x16cm) until lightly golden brown. 

About 10-15 minutes. 

Let it cool down before adding the caramel layer.

150g cream (35% full fat)
98g sugar
100g glucose
15g invert sugar (trimoline)

45g passion fruit püree (for example Boiron)
4.5g butter
2.5g cocoa butter
2g fleur de Sel

1 vanilla bean 

100g salted peanuts

In a saucepan mix the cream, sugar, glucose and the invert sugar. On medium to low heat cook the mixture to 112°C. Make sure that the mixture doesn’t start to burn from the bottom. 

Add the passion fruit püree and the scraped vanilla bean at this stage, mix lightly and continue to boil until the mixture reaches 131°C. Keep it at a low to medium heat.

Once it has reached 131°C remove from the heart and add the butter and the cocoa butter and mix well. 

Immediately pour onto your dough in the prepared mould. Add the peanuts whiles still warm and press lightly into the caramel. Please be careful as the caramel is VERY HOT!

Let the bars cool completely before cutting into bars. 

You can cut them into the size you prefer. Mine were about 10x2.5cm

300g Sambirano 68% couverture tempered (Felchlin)

It is important to temper the chocolate. You will also require more for tempering that you do for the coating. It will are it a lot easier to dip them and of course the chocolate can be reused for another purpose so nothing goes to waste. 

I used a dark chocolate called Sambirano 68% from my favorite brand “Felchlin” they have an amazing range of couverture and this one in particular has a very fruity and also bitter flavor which goes really nicely with the sweet/fruity caramel and the salty peanuts. 

Of course you can substitute it for another dark chocolate that you prefer or even milk chocolate will do. With milk chocolate it will just be sweeter in flavor. 

Happy Baking! :)