Congo Bars

Last night I was supposed to go to a concert with my sister and two brothers. But when Brian came home early from class I decided that I'd rather stay home with him, bake some treats, and go to bed early. They probably think now I'm old, married and boring, but hey, I'm ok with that. And as a result of my night in, I tried a new recipe! I came across this recipe on the Bakerella website. She posts about all kinds of things you can bake, but she's most famous for these. (She taught Martha how to make them on her show!) I'll be trying some of those soon. I seem to be in a bar mood lately, so I thought I'd give these a try. It's similar to recipes for blondies, and you can add whatever you'd like to them. She gives some other suggestions on her site. I just used chocolate chips and added chopped walnuts to only half.

About the recipe: She gives two options for mixing, by hand or with a mixer. She said she liked the texture of the hand mixed better so I went with that. But I've only made them the one way, so I can't really compare the two. She did mention that that taste was the same, so you choose. As for sifting the dry ingredients, I went with my moms method. If there is a better, faster, easier way to get things done, she'll find it. So for sifting dry ingredients she just gets out her wire wisk and wisks away. It works just as well and is very quick.


Bakerella's suggested baking time is 30 minutes, but mine, and others who commented on the recipe, weren't done at 30. I just kept checking them about every two minutes, and eventually after about eight more minutes they were done. You can check them with a toothpick to see if they are done. She mentioned not to over cook them, and I think I could have cooked them a little less, but I didn't want to cut into a big gooey mess. Next time I might try cooking them in a jellyroll pan or something larger so they are not quite so thick, might help with the baking time. But all in all they were easy to make, don't require special ingredients and a very tasty treat!

Bakerella Congo Bars Recipes