Peanut Butter Blondies

A few weeks ago, I received Iron Chef Cat Cora's latest cookbook, and I was eager to start digging in and making all the wonderful things I've found in there. In a few days I will post about a fabulous dinner we had recently, most components of which came from this book. But since I personally believe that dessert is the best meal of the day, I will be telling you about these Peanut Butter Blondies first!



First of all, a simple bar-cookie-type dessert loaded with peanut butter, and with a surprsingly low butter content? Count me in! I debated making these, or making her peanutter cookies, but I have a feeling those cookies will be making an appearance in my house sooner rather than later! I'm glad I chose these, because they took about a blink of an eye to make.

These are very simple blondies, but sometimes that can be such a good thing. With these, I felt like they turned out just a tad less moist than I would like, but I am guessing that this is because I test-drove a new peanut butter in these. Smucker's now makes a reduced-fat natural peanut butter. Since I have never seen a peanut butter that is both natural and reduced-fat, so I definitely wanted to see if it would work. And while the peanut butter is very tasty and doesn't seem lower in fat at all, I think that it did contribute to the less-than-greasy texture of the blondies. But I'm not complaining about it; I warm up a blondie for a few seconds, pile some ice cream on top, and I'm a happy girl. I made them in my Magic Brownie Pan, so that eliminated the guesswork of slicing these evenly, too. So easy, it's dangerous! There's no excuse not to make them often!

Peanut Butter Blondies
adapted from Cat Cora's Classics With a Twist
makes 12 blondies

Ingredients
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup peanut butter, preferably creamy
3/4 cup granulated sugar (I actually used vegan cane sugar)
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. quick oats (Cat used 2 Tbsp. chopped peanuts)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Position a rack in the middle; coat a 9-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray, or line it with parchment or nonstick aluminum foil.

2. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and peanut butter until fluffy. Add both sugars and beat until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.. Add the vanilla and mix until smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture, beating after each addition, until a smooth dough forms. Spread the dough in the prepared pan and sprinkle with the quick oats.

4. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let the blondies cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes, then cut into 12 rectangles and serve. The blondies will keep for 3 to 4 days in an airtight container.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Rosemary Apricot Squares

This week's Baked Sunday Mornings project was to make these Rosemary Apricot Squares, a pleasant surprise if ever there was one. Why? Well, I guess I just didn't think I'd like these bars very much; they don't sound quite as exciting as most of the other Baked recipes do. I'll be honest with you; I don't eat apricots. I don't buy fresh apricots, and I don't buy dried apricots. I've also never turned a dried fruit into a jam filling, so this recipe marked a couple firsts for me. I'm glad I took the plunge, because these bars were simply delightful.

You start out with a pretty simple shortbread crust. The addition of fresh, minced rosemary lends specks of color to this otherwise blond layer, and gives it a nice, floral dimension that I really liked.

The next layer is a fruit filling layer, and it actually couldn't have been much easier to make. I cooked a bunch of dried apricots down in a mixture of water, honey, brandy, sugar, and a pinch of salt. They did take forever to get to what I considered the "ready" stage, but it was all worth the time spent on the stove. The mixture is transferred to a food processor and pureed until smooth. I tasted it, and I was surprised at how good it was. Maybe apricots deserve another try, I thought.

This fruit filling is then spread over the cooled shortbread crust and evened out. A final layer of delicious topping is sprinkled over the top of the fruit. It's just flour, dark brown sugar, flour, a bit of salt, some butter, and chopped pecans. It tastes like crumb cake topping, but mine was a lot sandier and less chunky than crumb cake topping. Plus, I patted mine down so that the top layer looks more smooth and uniform, with just the lumps of pecan visible.

The squares were so fragrant while they were in the oven; my curiosity was officially piqued. Before making these, I didn't even know if I was going to try them. I figured the whole batch would be sent off to work with Andy, never to be seen again. But now I wanted to eat one!

When it came time to cut these into squares, I trimmed the edges from the outer sides of the block. The apricot had seeped out a bit and burned on the sides, and it just wasn't as attractive as the rest of the bars were. So I snacked. I tried those edges, and I loved them. The shortbread is tender (maybe a bit too tender and crumbly, but still delicious!), the apricot layer is sweet and smooth and wonderful, and the topping is the perfect nutty, salty foil to the rest of the bar. This cookbook has done it again; it's taken flavors that are an odd pairing, and transformed them into an amazing, cohesive dessert that seems to work on every level. I am very impressed with the Rosemary Apricot Squares. Now I think I better make sure the rest of them do make it to work with Andy, because they are dangerous to keep around!

Find out if everybody else in the group was impressed with these bars, too. The blogroll can be found right here.

Cranberry Bliss Bars

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season, and a special Christmas morning. We were lucky enough to have a very white Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and it is still all white and snowy outside now. The kids got to shovel with Daddy and play in the snow this morning; it was the whitest Christmas I've ever seen, and I'm so glad my boys got to enjoy it a bit.



I wanted to share with you one of our very favorite holiday desserts. This is the fourth year straight I have made these Cranberry Bliss Bars, and they continue to be that quintessential Christmas treat for us. Just the smell of these bars baking in the oven means Christmas for me, and I don't know if I could celebrate the holidays without them now. My husband and I used to work for Starbucks, and this is a dessert they sell in their stores around the holiday season. We became hooked on them years ago, and when we no longer worked there, we set out to learn how to make them at home.

I managed to find a copycat recipe from Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes. The bars, when made at home, trump the storebought version. At least, that is our humble opinion! They're buttery and dense, thanks to the blondie layer that contains generous chunks of white chocolate and dried cranberry. They're creamy and tart, thanks to the cream cheese frosting layer which contains real lemon juice. They're rich and decadent, in part because I like to drizzle some melted white chocolate across the top after sprinkling the surface with more dried cranberry. The recipe calls for a milk/shortening/powdered sugar drizzle on top, but sometimes I like to go for the more sinful white chocolate option, as I did this year. Whichever way you choose, these are sweet and complex and perfect for any holiday gathering. Happy Holidays!





Cranberry Bliss Bars
adapted from Top Secret Recipes
makes 16-30 bars (depending on how you cut them)

Ingredients
For the bars:
Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries, diced
6 oz. white chocolate, coarsely chopped into chunks

For the frosting:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract (or 1/4 tsp. vanilla and 1/4 tsp. orange extract)

For the topping:
1/4 cup dried cranberries, diced
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp. vegetable shortening
1 Tbsp. milk

OR

2 oz. white chocolate, melted and cooled

Directions
Make the base: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9x13 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 or 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Mix in the vanilla, salt, and ginger. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and mix just until combined. With a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the dried cranberries and white chocolate. Spread the mixture into the prepared baking pan.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until the sides are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool while you make the frosting.

Make the frosting: 1. Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Once all the sugar has been incorporated, mix in the lemon juice, vanilla extract, and orange extract (if using). Mix well.

Assemble the bars: 1. Once the base layer has cooled completely, spread the frosting evenly to cover the surface of the base. Sprinkle with dried cranberries.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining topping ingredients, or melt and slightly cool your white chocolate if you choose to use that instead. Using a small spoon or fork, drizzle the icing down over the top of the frosting layer, creating zigzags of white all across. Allow the layers to set in the refrigerator for several hours before cutting into pieces.

3. To slice into 16 triangles: Slice the cake lengthwise (the long way) through the middle. Slice the cake across the width 3 times, making a total of 8 rectangular slices. Slice each of those rectangles diagonally, creating 16 triangular slices. You can also cut small squares or rectangles; you can get a lot more than 16 pieces this way!

Snickerdoodle Blondies

Cinnamon is a popular flavor here at my house. In fact, I now keep a sealed container of cinnamon sugar right on top of my toaster oven, so often does my oldest son ask for cinnamon toast at breakfast. Considering the cinnamon love around these parts, you would think I make snickerdoodle cookies pretty frequently, but I only make them around the holidays. However, now that I've made these decadent Snickerdoodle Blondies, I'll be looking at different incarnations of the mighty snickerdoodle to make in the future. Turns out cinnamon sugar's pretty much good on everything!

The greatest thing about making blondies is the ease of preparation. They're kind of like a brownie's lighter-hued cousin, or something. In the case of these particular blondies, you most likely already have the ingredients on hand. The usual suspects are here: flour, brown sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla. You basically throw together a cookie dough for these, then press the dough down into a 9x13-inch pan instead of shaping cookies. A very healthy sprinkling of cinnamon sugar goes down over the top. Then the pan visits the oven for about 25-30 minutes.

These are utterly addictive. They are dense, sweet, and wonderfully cinnamon-y. In fact, I'd venture to say that they'd be even more dynamite if they had cinnamon in the dough itself, rather than just on top. Hmm, maybe next time. But as far as this batch is concerned, I thought they were pretty stellar. The kids and the hubby agreed. I made these on a Friday afternoon, and they were polished off by the end of the weekend. That normally doesn't happen around here! I'd make these again in a heartbeat, and I can only imagine what kinds of add-ins I could play around with next time to make these even tastier. They are the perfect thing to make when you need to take a quick, easy dessert to a potluck or something. Or, you could just make them for your family to plow through over a lazy weekend!

Snickerdoodle Blondies

from Dozen Flours

makes 20-24 bars, depending on the size of your bars

Ingredients

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup butter, at room temperature

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

2 Tbsp. white sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan (I lined my pan with foil). Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla until smooth.

2. Stir in the flour mixture until well-blended. Spread evenly in prepared pan (mixture will be somewhat cookie batter-ish). Combine white sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter.

3. Bake 25-30 minutes or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool slightly. While still warm, cut into bars with a sharp knife.

Key Lime Bars

Some of my best summer dessert memories involve key lime pie. I just love the stuff. Normally, I'll go for the decadent, chocolatey desserts when given a choice. But key lime is one of the few fruity flavors I can never pass up. And to me, the pairing of tart, creamy key lime pie filling and a graham cracker crust is darn near perfect.



I wanted to provide something sweet for a potluck lunch Andy was having at work. I needed it to be something I could whip together quickly and easily. I bought way too many limes last week (though, sadly, they were not key limes) and inspiration hit me. A key lime pie bar! That would fit the bill wonderfully! I remembered that Martha Stewart's Cookies book had a bar cookie recipe that I wanted an excuse to make. Now was my chance.



I was very grateful for the ease of this recipe. The hardest part was separating the three eggs; I messed up and added an egg white to my already separated egg yolks. Oops! And the yolks already had the fresh lime zest added to it; double oops! So I had to toss the bowl of yolks and zest and start over again. Besides that little hiccup in the works, everything was smooth sailing. A quick graham cracker crust is baked, then cooled. Next, you pour a mixture of egg yolks, lime zest, sweetened condensed milk, and fresh lime juice on top of the crust and put the whole thing back into the oven. It bakes for another 10 minutes, and then it is cooled and chilled in the refrigerator. After that, you're ready to cut and serve!

We cut ours into 24 bars, even though Martha says you can cut 18 bars. The 24 bars seemed like they were a good size for a potluck, whereas the 18 bars would probably be better for a situation where you were only serving the bars for dessert after a dinner or something. Martha's bars were garnished with some freshly whipped cream and thin lime slices, but we just served ours plain. They were a hit at the lunch just the way they were, but I would like to serve them by the book next time; they'll be a bit prettier that way!

Key Lime Bars (or just plain Lime Bars!)

adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies

makes 18-24 bars, depending on the size of your slices

Ingredients

For the crust:

1 cup plus 2 1/2 Tbsp. finely ground graham cracker crumbs

1/3 cup sugar

5 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

3 large egg yolks

1 1/2 tsp. finely grated lime zest

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

2/3 cup fresh Key lime juice (I used regular limes, about 4)

For the garnish:

1/4 cup heavy cream

2 Key limes, thinly sliced into half-moons

Directions:

For the crust: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Stir together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter in a small bowl. Press evenly onto bottom of an 8-inch square glass baking pan. (I don't have a glass square baking pan, so I used a foil-lined metal baking pan, and it was fine.) Bake until dry and golden brown, about 10 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

For the filling: 1. Put egg yolks and lime zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on high speed until very thick, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Add condensed milk in a slow, steady stream, mixing constantly. Raise speed to high; mix until thick, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add lime juice; mix until just combined.

Assemble bars: 1. Spread filling evenly over crust using a spatula. Bake, rotating halfway through, until filling is just set, about 10 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

Make garnish: 1. Cut 18 or 24 lime bars. Put cream in the clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the clean whisk attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Garnish bars with whipped cream and a slice of lime. Ungarnished bars can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 3 days.

Millionaire's Shortbread

I've had my eye on this recipe for a while. It's another one from my Baked cookbook, and since I've had nothing but luck with their bar cookie recipes, I thought it would be a simple enough endeavor. This cookie combines three irresistible (to me, anyway) layers: crumbly, buttery shortbread, topped with a thick, creamy milk caramel, then finished off with deep, dark chocolate.

In addition to sounding positively scrumptious, this recipe held the distinction of having me make my very own dulce de leche from cans of sweetened condensed milk, which I have wanted to try but never had. It sounded very easy, so I wasn't too worried about the whole process.

I started out by making the shortbread cookie layer. It is done by mixing together the dough ingredients, partially by mixer and partially by hand, and transferring it all into a 9x13-inch pan. It's pressed down evenly, and then pricked all over with a fork. Once it is fully baked, you allow it to cool before adding the remaining layers.

The next layer is where I started to run into some trouble. Well, maybe not trouble (yet), but I did run into some uncertainty as to whether or not I was doing things correctly. For the dulce de leche layer, you simply empty two cans of sweetened condensed milk into a heatproof bowl, set it over a pot of simmering water, and allow it to thicken and turn a darker, more caramelly color. The cookbook said this would take anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

At around the 2 hour mark, we were still simmering away. By then, the mixture had turned a slightly darker shade and was marginally thicker. However, it was nowhere near ready to come off the heat. I'm pretty sure I know what the problem was. I had used one can of regular milk, and one can of fat-free milk. I realize that you should probably only use this method for full-fat milk, but I really thought it could be done. I should have anticipated that it would have a harder time thickening up, but I wanted to experiment, anyway.

By nearly 3 hours, I decided to quit while I was ahead. At this point, the milk had definitely transformed into a much more gooey, almost spreadable mixture, but was still thin compared to standard caramel. In addition, the color was not nearly as dark as I would have liked. I looked up pictures on the Internet of dulce de leche as a reference, and saw caramels of all colors and consistencies. Thus, I finally decided it would be okay, and I used it on the shortbread.

I allowed this layer to firm up in the fridge for two hours, then put together the dark chocolate topping and spread that over the dulce de leche. Once everything was all layered nicely, it went back into the fridge to set up and become hard enough to cut into squares. I decided to let it sit overnight and cut them in the morning.

When I cut my first row of squares, I could immediately see the negative effects of cooking the caramel as a full-fat/no-fat hybrid. As the squares were sliced away individually, you could instantly see the caramel begin to ooze out the sides. Worse, they just kept oozing and oozing. It was even difficult to snap that first picture of this post before the caramel ran completely down the bars. I am currently storing them in the freezer; the fridge just didn't seem to keep them stiff enough. I'm disappointed in the way they turned out, at least in appearance.

In taste, though? They are very decadent, very rich, and totally delicious. It's a shame that they are way too messy to serve at Andy's office; I'm sure these bars would be a crowd-pleaser. Nevertheless, they will be safely stowed away in our freezer here at home, where they will lurk in the shadows until a chocolate craving takes hold....

Millionaire's Shortbread

adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

makes 24-36 bars

Ingredients

For the shortbread:

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, softened

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided, plus more for dusting

1 large egg yolk, slightly beaten

For the caramel filling:

28 oz. (2 14-oz. cans) sweetened condensed milk (and I learned that only full-fat will do!)

For the chocolate glaze:

6 oz. dark chocolate (60% cacao), coarsely chopped

1 tsp. light corn syrup

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

Directions

1. Make the shortbread: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13-inch baking pan with parchment paper. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and butter until blended.

2. Add 2 cups of the flour and beat until well combined. Add the egg yolk and beat for a few seconds, or until just combined. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Dust the top of the dough and your hands with a little flour. Use your hands to gently work the dough into a 6-by-6-inch square. You will have to turn the dough and sprinkle the top with flour as you go. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup flour on the surface of the dough. Fold the dough over and knead until incorporated, then flatten the dough into a rectangle. Transfer the rectangle to the prepared pan and press it into the pan.

3. Prick the dough all over with a fork and bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 22 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

4. Make the caramel filling: Put the sweetened condensed milk in a medium heatproof bowl and set it over a saucepan of boiling water over low heat. Cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until thick and caramel colored. Remove the bowl from the pan and beat until smooth.

5. Pour the caramel filling over the cooled shortbread and place the pan in the refrigerator until cool, about two hours.

6. Make the chocolate glaze: In a large, nonreactive metal bowl, combine the chocolate, corn syrup, and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until the mixture is completely smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for 30 seconds to cool slightly.

7. Pour the mixture over the chilled caramel layer and use an offset spatula to spread it into an even layer. Put in the refrigerator for 1 hour, or until the glaze hardens.

8. Remove the pan from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving, so as not to crack the chocolate glaze. Cut into squares and serve. The bars can be stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to 4 days.

A Week of Coconut: Samoas Bars

Recently, I have found myself on a coconut kick. It wasn't necessarily a conscious decision; I just started planning things to make, and then I realized that a lot of them involved coconut. I thought it would be fun to turn it into a theme week here on my blog! So most of the recipes I will feature in the coming week will include a coconut ingredient of some kind. I'm kicking off the week with these delectable Samoas Bars.

So Andy's favorite Girl Scout cookie is the Samoa. He could probably eat a whole box of them in one day. When I found out that there was a copycat recipe out there, I got very excited. When I found it, though, I realized just how labor intensive it would be. First, there's the cookie, which needs to be cut into a circle, with a smaller circle cut out in the center. Then there's the caramel/coconut layer on top of that. Then, you'd have to dip each cookie individually into chocolate, and finally drizzle more chocolate across the tops. Sure, they'd be pretty, but I really don't have time to do all that. But, all hope was not lost! Because lo and behold, there was a Samoas Bar cookie recipe as well! This would cut out the tedious step of individual cookies, since these cookies would be baked as a 9x13 sheet. These are time-consuming, as there are many different steps. However, none of the steps are difficult, and it comes together quickly enough.

The bottom layer is basically a big shortbread cookie. Simple, and very fast to throw together and bake off in the oven. One quick note about the shortbread layer, however: I found it to be extremely crumbly. I don't think I did anything wrong; I followed the directions carefully. When I got to the final step of dipping the bars into chocolate, I couldn't successfully do so because the cookie layer literally fell apart and disappeared into the bowl of chocolate. In the future, I may look for a different, sturdier cookie base recipe and use that instead.

While that cookie layer cools, you toast up 3 cups of coconut, then melt down some caramel. You fold the coconut into the melted caramel, and then drop it by spoonfuls onto the cooled cookie. It spreads fairly easily, but you have to work quickly while the caramel is still warm. You simply cover the entire cookie surface with the coconut/caramel,

then allow everything to firm up. After the bars are firm and cool, they can be cut into bars. At this point, they can be dipped in melted dark or semi-sweet chocolate (I used semi-sweet) and placed on wax paper to set. However, like I had said before, I had major problems when I got to this part. I resorted to spooning the melted chocolate onto the bar bottoms and spreading it to cover completely. I had to stick these in the fridge to firm the chocolate enough to peel the bars from the wax paper; otherwise, the chocolate and half the shortbread layer wanted to come right off. Oh, well. The drizzling part was a breeze; I waited until the bars were all chocolatey on the bottom, then I put what was left of the chocolate into a little piping/decorating bag. A quick squiggle across the tops, and they were ready for consumption!

These are delicious, all technical difficulties aside. They truly do remind you of a Samoa cookie, but without the $4.00 per box price tag. They are a good amount of work, so I'm sure I won't be making them that often, but it's a great recipe to keep in your back pocket, especially if you have a Samoa lover in the house!

The recipe can be found here.