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

Coconut and Chocolate Fudge Bars

So the no posting thing has been because of the no cooking thing! And oh how I've missed it. I've had my eye on the school year ending and looking forward to summer where I can devote more time to cooking, baking and other things I love. This week was the last week of school, and while my students were being entertained by projects I would not be grading, I had some time to search around the internet for new food blogs and recipes. I happened upon The Pioneer Woman's blog and her Tasty Kitchen blog. Both of these are filled with recipes and pictures that will want to make you drop everything and get in the kitchen. If you're not familiar with these two blogs, just real quick, The Pioneer Woman is quite amazing. She blogs daily about food, photography, her daily life and homeschooling. The Tasty Kitchen is a separate page, she created, where anyone can post up a recipe to share. (But I'm sure most of you know who she is, she's wildly popular.)

So I happened upon a recipe for coconut and chocolate bars over at the Tasty Kitchen. In the introduction to the recipe the author compares to them to Almond Joy candy bars. Sold! And lately Brian and I have been loving us some coconut. The recipe is simple to follow. It only makes a 8x8 pan, so not a huge serving. But that's ok because they are really rich. I cut them into pretty small pieces and they go well with a tall glass of milk or water. Also, it says prep time is 20 minutes, and cook time is 45 minutes. But in there you have to wait about an hour for the crust to cool and another two hours to cool after baking the fudge, before cutting, so be advised. (I actually made some other bars while I was waiting. I'll post those tomorrow!) I made these Saturday afternoon and we didn't cut into them until about midnight. We were out and about for a while, but mmmmm, what a great late night snack!

Here are some pictures from my baking, and a link to the recipe. Try these, I'm pretty sure you'll be thanking me! I've got rave reviews from everyone who has.

Making the crust:




Making the chocolate fudge:




Chocolate & Coconut Fudge Bar Recipe

Pumpkin Bars

So fall baking is upon us. And baking is one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen. It was in August that my husband, Brian, asked me if we could make pumpkin waffles for breakfast. I had to tell him that pumpkin season didn’t start until fall was here. And it was definitely too hot in August to be feeling like pumpkin pancakes. Well, fall has been here for about a month and I’m happy to announce that we finally had our first pumpkin dessert. Brian and I had my sister, Brittany, and her boyfriend, Paul, over for dinner and dessert on Sunday. I mad my moms famous pumpkin bars. It’s actually a recipe that we originally used with bananas for banana bars, but she adapted it for pumpkin. We’re pretty sure it works with just about anything. It’s pretty fool proof. The recipe is very easy to make. We always use a cream cheese frosting with the bars, we’ve found that tastes best. I don’t have a favorite cream cheese frosting recipe, but have definitely graduated from using the stuff from the can! We loved the pumpkin bars so much, or were just so pumpkin deprived, that the four of us finished off at 9 x 13 pan of them in one night!


Recipe:
Cream:
2 cubes of butter
2/3 Cups sugar
2/3 Cups brown sugar

Add:
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 eggs

Add dry:
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Cups flour

Preheat 350, 9x 13 pan (or a little larger) cook 25 minutes.