Steve's Pecan Parline Bars

This last week has been a nightmare. On Monday, March 21st my younger brother, Steve, went in for a colonoscopy and they found a mass the size of a baseball on his colon. The doctor said it have been growing there for 10 years. On Wednesday (his birthday) he had a CT scan that found spots on his liver. The whole family is numb with shock and disbelief, he is only 44 and has three kids.

On Saturday we had his birthday party, and I made him his favorite dessert: Pecan Pralines Bars. Here is the recipe I used, but I subbed half the white sugar for brown sugar.


Here is my brother, always happy, always smiling. He is having surgery on Wednesday, March 30 to remove a part of his colon. He will start chemo right after that...


If you are over the age of 40, please, please go and get a colonoscopy. Even if you don't have any symptoms. Most doctors say you don't need it until you are 50, but don't risk it. You are playing Russian Roulette with you life.

I scheduled my appointment (I'm scared to death about what they might find), now you schedule YOURS!!!!

DB - Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and http://www.nanaimo.ca/.

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Thanks, Lauren, for selecting a unique baking challenge. My baking horizons have expanded tremendously since joining the Daring Bakers.

Lauren of Celiac Teen gave us the option of baking gluten-free or regular wheat graham wafers. I opted to make the regular flour graham crackers. The cracker dough came together nicely, but I had a lot of trouble cutting and lifting the sticky dough off the rolling surface. In the end I fell back on my sugar cookie method: 1) roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper 2) chill the dough till it is stiff 3) cut out the shapes from the half frozen dough. No mess, no sticking, no problem.

Here is the dough just out of the frig. Stiff as a piece of plywood.



The Nanaimo Bar itself was a little time consuming to assemble, but nothing that a Daring Baker couldn't handle.

The bottom layer was the most involved. The first step was to bake graham wafers/crackers. I've never considered myself a lover of graham crackers, but these things were good. They tasted like thin, crispy honeyed shortbread cookies.



I also cut a few crackers in the shape of Fleurs de lis.

Geaux Saints!!

Next stop Miami and the Super Bowl !!!

Back to the Nanaimo Bars... next the cocoa, butter and sugar where melted together and then an egg was added to the mix as a thickener.

Next add the graham cracker crumbs, nuts and coconut to the chocolate mix.


And dump it all into the pan and let it cool.


The middle layer was a mix of butter, vanilla pudding mix, milk and powdered sugar that was beat until smooth.
I had a little problem spreading the custard layer (it was thick and not at all custard-like), but I just used my fingers to gently push the custard around without disturbing the chocolate crust layer underneath. Added bonus I got to lick all the custard off my fingers.

The top layer was just a thin layer of melted chocolate.



So all-in-all another fun and tasty Daring Baker Challenge, but if I had to describe Nanaimo Bars in one word it would be "sweet". If I make them again I would change a few things to better suit my tastes. For the crust (bottom layer), I would reduce the amount of sugar by half, use unsweetened coconut (sweetened coconut was just too much sugar), and increase the amount of graham cracker crumbs. I would also add some vanilla extract to the custard layer to punch up the flavor.

The recipes selected for Daring Baker's is always interesting and challenging, and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us in February.

Rocky Ledge Bars

Martha Stewart’s Rocky Ledge Bars, or Chocolate Chip Cookies on steroids as I like to call them, are jammed packed with three kinds of chocolate chips, butterscotch, marshmallows and caramels. The only thing missing is nuts.

With all those goodies baked inside I would like to say they were fantastic, but I thought they were just okay. The butterscotch was a little overpowering (I'm not a big fan of butterscotch), and all the other tastes merged into one big blur of sweetness.

Here are the players: semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate & butterscotch chips, mini marshmallows, & caramels...



The batter all mixed up and going into the pan.



Just added the topping. Yummm, it sure does look good.



The finished product.



I baked them just a little too long (as usual). When I tested with a tooth pick the center was still damp so I baked it another few minutes. In hindsight I should have taken it out at the prescribed time. When the bars cooled they were a little hard.

So in the final analysis they were a nice treat, but nothing to rave about. Butterscotch with the dominate flavor, but if you are a fan of butterscotch you might just love these bars.

TWD - Applesauce Spice Bars

This week's TDW (Tuesday with Dorie) challenge was Applesauce Spice Bars on pages 117 and 118 from Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Individually I like all the ingredients in this recipe, but I wasn't wowed by the finished product. I found it too moist and wet, especially after the second day. I loved the glaze (it tasted just like pralines), but I think a maple cream cheese frosting (pictured above) would have been a better match with the spices.

Do I sound negative?

I don't mean to be discouraging, a lot of people love these bars, but I just like 'cakier' baked goods. If I tried it again, I would add more flour to the batter, include a crisp shortbread crust, and pair it with a maple cream cheese frosting. I guess I would also have to come up with a new name, because if I made all those changes they wouldn't be Dorie's Applesauce Spice Bars anymore. :)

Here are the apples, raisins and pecans waiting patiently for their dip in the batter.

The dry stuff...

Everything all mixed together...

Just out of the oven. I cut the recipe in half, and baked it in a 8" x 8" pan.

Cooking the glaze.

On the TWD website a lot of people mentioned that there was not enough glaze so I cooked twice as much (yum). They also mentioned that the glaze was thin and runny, so I cooked the syrup an extra 2 minutes. I may have gone overboard the cooking, because my glaze was a little brittle after it cooled.

The finished Applesauce Spice Bars with Brown Sugar Glzae.

Raspberry Patch Crumb Bars

The temperatue outside is on the rise, so it must be raspberry picking time. I "pick" my raspberries at Sam's Club. Ha, ha, ha. No bugs, no snakes, just a polite swipe of my credit card at the check-out counter and away I go.

Today's offering is from a recipe I found on the Taste of Home web site: Raspberry Patch Crumb Bars. The crust in this recipe was a little different from what I'm used to: you cut shortening into the flour instead of butter. What?! No butter?! I don't know if I'm gonna like this....


Here are the eggs going in. Don't those yolks look bright? I've been using Egg Land's Best lately, and I really notice a difference in taste.


Here is the crust batter going into the pan. I found that the shortening produced a sticky dough, it wasn't "crumbly" in the least. I even added more flour trying to dry it out some, but I never achieved a good texture.



Aren't the raspberries beautiful? The recipe says to toss them with sugar and starch and spread over the crust. Word of WARNING: TASTE your raspberry/sugar mixture to see if it is sweet enough!!! The berries I used were so tart (lip puckering tart) they almost ruined the whole batch of cookies. I had to coat the finished bars with a thick layer of confectioner's sugar to counter the tartness.

Here is the pan right before it goes into the oven. See how lumpy the crumble looks. It's more like cookie dough than crumble. I know, I know, I'm obsessed with the crumble, but it just doesn't look right.


The finished product. The raspberries look bright and refreshing, and oh so summery.


And the crumble?

It looks okay, doesn't it?

It doesn't look lumpy, does it?

Please lie to me and tell me my crumble doesn't look lumpy.