#23: Magic Bars

In honor of the new, and LAST (*tear*) Harry Potter movie coming out this week, I wanted to make a cookie bar that my mom used to make for Christmas every year- MAGIC BARS! Although I usually hear this bar being called six-layer bars, the name was INCREDIBLY fitting for said events, PLUS the taste is truly magical, no joke. I have made this bar before using a pre-packaged bake set sold by those condensed milk people, but I was determined to find a homemade version. And luckily for you, I did.

#23: Magic Bars (as found in the Wild Strawberry Lodge Seafood and Dessert Cookbook)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

3 cups graham cracker crumbs

28 ounces sweetened condensed milk

2 cups butterscotch chips

2 cups chocolate chips

2 2/3 cups coconut

2 cups pecans, chopped

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line pan with tin foil. 

      - Problem #1 I had with this recipe, NO TIN FOIL. Remind me to buy Stephen tin foil sometime.

2. Place butter in pan and melt in oven. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs over melted butter. Mix and pat down evenly.

     - Problem #2, I had no idea what size pan to use, so I used the only pan the boys had, a 9x13 baking pan, which worked out fine.

     - Problem #3, Okay, this recipe calls for WAY too much butter, and too few cups of graham cracker crumbs. Seriously, the bottom of the pan was SWIMMING with butter. I think PART of the problem might've been that instead of buying pre-crushed crumbs, I tried to crush my own with some graham crackers Stephen and I had left over from a smores night we had had. Bad move. I am IMPATIENT, so I didn't crush for quite as long as I probably should have. Needless to say, I had some pretty large crumbs sitting at the bottom of the pan, which allowed the butter to seep up into the bars. Lesson learned. Patience is a virtue.

3.Pour milk evenly over crumbs. Top with remaining ingredients listed in order. Press down firmly with fork. Bake for 25 minutes.

     - Problem #4, 25 minutes? More like 45. Seriously. I thought the middle of the bars would NEVER bake properly. Plus, when I took the bars out of the oven, they were first of all, stuck to the sides of the pan, second of all, way too gooey in the middle. We popped the entire pan into the freezer to let the bars set, and the results were DELICIOUS the next afternoon, although maybe a little hard to slice.

Lesson learned- buy tin foil. But these babies are awesome. Gone in a day (thank you IT boys for taking them off my hands so they don't go straight to my thighs!) LIKE MAGIC! 

Are you checking out those layers?

 Evidently I got one of Stephen's coworkers to like coconut and pecans with these bars. His conversion is complete.

You can't imagine the amount of effort that went into trying to get these bars OUT of the pan. Insane.

#22: Louisiana Mud Pie

I CHEATED! ... again. I'm getting amazing at cutting corners. Not only did I buy a pre-made pie crust for this particular project, but I also didn't even bake! Considering the weather has been in the mid-90's since I can remember, I finally decided I had had enough of sticking my head in an oven for an afternoon of baking and wanted to opt for something a little cooler... enter in this DELICIOUS ice cream cake.

This seriously might be the best dessert I have made to this date, and it was so easy... if not a little time consuming. Full of chocolate and swirls of caramel, this one is DEFINITELY going in the family cookbook. Although Stephen and I could have easily eaten the whole pie on our own, I was BEGGING people to come and take some away, the CALORIE count of this pie is ASTRONOMICAL. So be forewarned... delish and deadly.

#22: Louisiana Mud Pie (as found in Sandra Lee's Bake Sale Cookbook)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup caramel topping
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 9-inch chocolate pie crust
2 pints coffee ice cream
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, stir together caramel topping and vanilla extract. Cook and stir over a medium heat just until boiling; reduce heat to low. Simmer for 8 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Spoon 1/4 cup of the cooled caramel mixture into pie crust; freeze about 15 minutes, or until caramel is firm. Remove pie crust from freezer. Using a rubber spatula, spread one pint of the softened ice cream over caramel. Sprinkle half the chocolate chips and half the pecans over the ice cream. Freeze for 1 hour more.
     - All right, confession- I didn't use the coffee ice cream the recipe calls for. I'm in PROVO, UTAH for the summer, folks. What I used instead was a brilliant move on my part- Stephen suggested I use chocolate in place of coffee. I thought that would be WAY too chocolatey, so I opted instead to buy one pint of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream (chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips in it) and DULCE DE LECHE ice cream (rich caramel ice cream with swirls of caramel throughout it... UH, YUM!). I went ahead and put the chocolate chip ice cream on the bottom, since I figured putting caramel ice cream on top of the caramel layer at the bottom of the pie might be too much.

3. Remove the pie from the freezer. Spread the remaining pint of softened ice cream into the pie (the dulce de leche). Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips and the remaining pecans. Top with the remaining caramel mixture. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving.
    - PS- It is SOOO much easier to spread the ice cream if you soften it in the microwave for 20 seconds prior to spreading it on the pie. I know a lot of people turn up their noses at putting ice cream in a microwave because they claim it refreezes funny, but it works! Also, by the time I got to this step, I had to reheat my caramel for a little bit in order to get it a little runnier to drizzle on the pie.

Best dessert I've tried so far, hands down. Make this pie. You'll want to make a miniature version of yourself to climb into the pie and nuzzle down into that layer of caramel at the bottom, I'M NOT KIDDING.

#21: Monster Cookies

Baking these cookies has always been something I wanted to do. Back during my Starbucks days, my friend Elyse would bake these bad boys and bring them to us to eat during our breaks. They were DELICIOUS, and pretty much full of EVERYTHING you could ever want in a cookie... peanut butter, chocolate chips, M&M's... If I had been smart, I would've demanded Elyse's recipe, but after looking throughout the internet, I FINALLY found a recipe I thought was fairly close to Elyse's (although I swear her's contained coconut, but whatevs). So Elyse, if you're reading this, let me know how I did...

#21: Monster Cookies (as found in Paul's copy of a Wild Strawberry Lodge Seafood and Dessert Cookbook... so I suppose he deserves a shout out too!)


Ingredients:

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup butter

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ tsp molasses

2 tsps baking soda

1 ½ cups peanut butter

4 ½ cups quick-cooking oats

½ cup chocolate chips

½ cup candy covered chocolate candies

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream sugars and butter.

     -Again, for those who don't remember, to cream the butter and sugars, I throw the butter into the microwave for about 45 seconds, then mix in the sugar and brown sugar. Easy-peazy-lemon-squeezy.

3. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. 

4. Stir in molasses, baking soda and peanut butter, then oats, chocolate chips and candies. 

5. Drop onto cookie sheet and flatten. Bake until done.

     - Bake until done? Not helpful. I kept the cookies in for 11 minutes, and they came out browned and crunchy. If you want a softer cookie, I'd try around 9 minutes. At 8, they weren't quite done.

THAT'S IT! Isn't that the easiest? This is a large recipe- I think we ended up with about three dozen. Luckily, Stephen and I were headed to Rexburg right after I made these, so we were able to pass them out to his family... otherwise, I could've easily eaten the whole batch. That good. Here are some pictures taken by my "very artistic" boyfriend...

#20: Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits

All right, made the first major milestone: 20 recipes down. For some reason, having only 4/5ths of my project laid out in front of me feels GOOD, like I am finally accomplishing something! In honor of reaching SUCH a phenomenal benchmark, I finally attempted something I hadn't tried yet: savory. Reading my blog, every single one of my recipes involves truckloads of sugar. I was scared to venture outside of my comfort zone, but naturally Martha, my muse, provided a recipe I was eager to try- cream cheese and chive biscuits. Since moving to Utah, I've had a HANKERING for cream cheese, couldn't tell you why, and this roll provides PLENTY of it. DELISH. I'm already picturing myself making these for many Christmas dinners to come. Precious, and soooo... Americana. Love it.

#20: Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits (as taken from  Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 tsps. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 tsps. salt
1 tablespoon sugar (yup, snuck sugar into my savory recipe, buwhaha)
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces
4 ounces cream cheese, cold, cut into pieces
1 1/4 cups buttermilk (dreaded buttermilk, curse you!)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and chives.
     - I stinkin' love the chives in this recipe. As a kid, my dad used to grow chives in our garden, and I loved eating them, and picking the purple flowers that also grew on them. Stephen and I found these organic chives at Smith's that come washed and in a cute little plastic carrier. So good.

2. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter and cream cheese until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining.
     - I finally took pictures of what this all looks like:

3. Pour in the buttermilk; using a fork, mix in the buttermilk until incorporated and the dough just comes together. The dough will be slightly sticky (slightly is an understatement, by the way. This was the stickiest dough I have EVER worked with. Horrible); do not overmix.

4. Turn out the dough on a lightly floured work surface. With floured fingers, gently knead dough about four times, until all the crumbs are incorporated and the dough is smooth. With a lightly floured rolling pin, gently roll out the dough to an 11-by-8-inch rectangle, about 1 inch thick. Using a bench scraper or long offset spatula to lift the ends of the dough, fold the rectangle into thirds (like a business letter). Give the dough a quarter turn. Roll out the dough again (to the same dimensions), and repeat the folding process. Wrap with plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
     - WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, way too wordy. Let's try that again- HERE is what I did. I COVERED the cutting board and my fingers with flour, that dough was way too sticky not to. Not really understanding how to "knead," I just sort of played with the dough until there were no crumbs left on the board, and the dough was as smooth as I thought it was going to be.
     I had no rolling pin, so I improvised. I used a cup, covered it in flour and BAM- instant rolling pin (note to self- also buy Stephen a rolling pin). Now, this is when it got tricky... for me. I went ahead and rolled it out to about the size of a piece of notebook paper, and then folding it into thirds, which looked like this:

Then I just rolled it out again, and did the three-fold again, in the opposite direction:

Naturally, the boys didn't have any plastic wrap, so I just lifted it up like that, placed it on a cookie sheet, and stuck it in the fridge for 30 minutes. There, that was easier.

5. Return the dough to the work surface. Roll out as before, and repeat the folding process. Give the dough another quarter turn; roll out the dough on more time, again into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Using a sharp knife, trim and discard 1/4 inch from all side; divide the rectangle into 12 equal squares. Place on a baking sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
      - So basically, I just repeated the steps I outlined above, rolled it out again, and trimmed off the rough edges. Then I placed the squares I cut out on the cookie sheet I had had in the fridge, and returned it into the fridge for another hour.

6. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, until the biscuits are golden and flecked with brown spots, 15 to 18 minutes.
     - So, I kept the biscuits in for 8 minutes, turned the sheet, and then kept them back in the oven for an additional 8 minutes. Here are the results:

 

Such a time consuming project, but they were really good with our penne and meat sauce that night. Culinary genius.