Honey Nut Bars

My sister was making fun of me the other day because she was looking at my blog and asked, "Ooo, how were those coffee frosted cookies?" and I had to tell her that she had, in fact, eaten them. She had totally forgotten since my post went up about a month after I had actually made them. This seems to be par for the course with my blog. No matter how often I bake I doubt that I will ever have the drive to do a post a day, or even a post a week. I have been sitting here in front of the computer for over an hour and I almost didn't even write this post.

I digress.

Here is a picture of a honey nut bar:
Yes, yes. Not bad looking. I made them about a billion years ago, but at least the picture stays fresh.

These bars were pretty tasty really. They are not something I would want all the time, but they made a delightful little breakfast treat. The bars came out a little dense, but I don't want to make it sound like a bad thing so I'll call them "hearty". Here's the recipe:

Honey-Nut Bars (from The Ultimate Cookie Book)

1/2 c. butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup honey
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. coconut
1 c. chopped walnuts
1 recipe powdered sugar icing

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and shortening on medium to high speed for about 30 seconds.
3. Add honey, baking powder, and salt and beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally.
4. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined and then add flour.
5. Stir in coconut and nuts.
6. Spread batter in prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Cool in pan, cut, and then allow to fully cool before drizzling with icing and topping with more nuts.

Mmmm.... I definitely wish these bars were around right now. I mean freshly baked ones anyway. I don't know about how it is where everyone else lives, but my house is being pummeled with angry rain. It is pouring buckets outside and the wind doesn't sound too happy either. It would be quite glorious to light the fire and have a nice cup of tea with a honey nut bar. ALAS! I am on a cursed diet. I happened to step on a scale the other day and nearly passed out when I saw the number. Terrible, terrible. Who is going to eat my baked goods now? The new job employs a person with a nut allergy which means I have just about no one to pawn my sweets off on. Maybe I should start an account with UPS so I can just keep shipping everything to my old job...

Sour Cream Pumpkin Bars with Browned Butter Frosting

Another recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Cookbook! Another delicious treat! I normally don't go for for frosted things as often both Favorite and I find that frosting, overly sugared and of dubious textures, can ruin an otherwise delicious dessert. However, something assured me that I would want to make this recipe in its entirety (ok, it wasn't something, it was my mom).
Sour Cream Pumpkin Bars

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 1/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 sour cream
1/4 c. milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease a 15x10x1 inch pan (I used two 8X8s)
3. In a large bowl, beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat in eggs, pumpkin, sour cream, milk, and vanilla until combined. Add flours and beat until combined. Stir in nuts.
4. Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack.
5. Prepare browned butter frosting and spread over cooled bars. Cut into bars. If desired top with nut halves.

Browned Butter Frosting

1/2 c. butter
3 c. powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low and continue to cook for 5 or 6 minutes or until butter becomes brown and fragrant.
   
2. Remove butter from heat and cool slightly.
3. Put butter and remaining ingredients in medium mixing bowl. Beat until combined. Beat in additional milk 1 tsp at a time, to make frosting spreadable.

These bars were less dense than I expected them to be. I was thinking they would be almost like a blondie brownie but they were almost cake-like. Either way, the toasty flavor of the browned butter frosting was delicious with the sweet pumpkiny bar. I would have been remiss to try these without their topper!

Toffee Bars

This past Thursday night I was anxious to bake something. I had picked out Honey Nut Bars, a glorious looking combination of honey, walnuts, and coconut, but I wanted to bring these to my Mom's house and my Stepdad hates coconut. Add to that the fact that almost every goodie I've ever brought to their house has had coconut in it and I decided to make something else. Since toffee is one of his favorite treats I thought the Toffee Cookie Bars were a winning idea. They looked pretty simple and fast and tasty so I dove in.

I didn't get home until 9:30 because I have a class on Thursday nights, but I wasn't worried because it was just a matter of mixing and layering a couple ingredients, no big deal. So I threw together the cookie base which was mostly brown sugar and butter (YUM!) with flour and an egg yolk thrown in to make it a bit more substantial. This got pressed in the bottom of the pan that had been prepared with a greased parchment bottom and greased sides and baked for 20 minutes. Next was the sweet stuff. I was to mix a can of sweetened condensed milk with butter and cook until thick an bubbly. Now is where I hit a roadblock. I had NO sweetened condensed milk. My last minute change in dessert direction had me minus an ingredient! So I looked up some substitutions on the internet. One said use evaporated milk with added sugar. Ok, but I only had a tiny little 5 oz can of that. I ended up using th evaporated milk, plus about a cup or so of regular milk, plus a bunch of sugar. It took HOURS to concentrate the milk to a point I thought was thick enough. Then I added the butter, got it all bubbly, and poured it over the base. I baked this for another 12 minutes or so, covered it in chocolate chips, another couple minutes in the oven, spread the chips out into a smooth, consistent layer, and topped it all with toasted pecans.


I let the bars set overnight in the fridge after they had come to room temp. I then chopped them up with my trusty Wilton Cookie Shovel. I have to tell you, the recipe did not call to cover the bottom of the pan in greased parchment, but I am sure glad I did. I have never had much luck getting anything bar-like out of a rectangular pan in one piece, but the parchment allowed me to get the bars out much more easily, and without injuring the bottom of my pan.

These bars ended up delicious, but very, very sweet. I'm not even really sure the consistency was right due to winging the ingredients a little, but they are good with a strong cup of coffee. Oh! And Charlie (my Stepdad) thought they were great!

Dim Sum Dessert

I love coconut and I also love the chewy wonderful texture of sushi rice, so when I bought a new recipe book on dim sum and found a recipe for Sweet Coconut Rice Bars I couldn't wait to make them.

Sweet Coconut Rice Bars

Bar:

• 2.5 c. uncooked glutinous rice
• 2.25 c. thick coconut milk
• .5 c. superfine sugar

Topping:

• 1.25 c. unsweetened dried shredded coconut
• .25 c. thick coconut milk
• .5 c. shaved palm sugar or dark brown sugar
• 3 tbsp. water

Recipe:

1. cook glutinous rice
2. heat rice, coconut milk, and sugar in medium heavy bottom saucepan until liquid is absorbed
3. spread rice in parchment lined baking pan
4. refrigerate until firm
5. combine shredded coconut and coconut milk in bowl
6. heat sugar and water in saucepan until slightly thickened
7. stir shredded coconut mix and sugar syrup until well combined
8. spread topping over rice and chill for another hour

Although these bars came out rather tasty and addictive, there are some thing I would do differently next time. The recipe calls for thick coconut milk but all I could find was cream of coconut. The recipe states that you can dilute coconut cream into thick coconut milk by adding water. I mistakenly confused coconut cream with cream of coconut and the result was less coconutty than I would have liked. Next time I will simply mix up the coconut cream and use it straight. I would also cut this recipe in half as it makes more than 2 people can eat in a weeks worth of desserts.