Chocolate & Butterscotch Chip Bars

These babies are just as tasty as they sound & are much easier to make than chocolate chip cookies.  You gotta love a recipe that doesn't call for any planning like taking out the butter to soften.

Chocolate & Butterscotch Chip Bars, slightly adapted from King Arthur's Flour

Ingredients:

2/3 cup unsalted butter
2 cups + 2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
2 3/4 cups flour
3 large eggs, room temp
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder, optional
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste 
1/4 teaspoon vanilla butter & nut flavor
3 cups of any type of "chips" and/or nuts (I used butterscotch & semi-sweet)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan. 

Melt the butter in a large bowl & stir in the brown sugar. Add the vanilla & flavoring, stirring until well combined. Allow the mixture to cool slightly (so that the eggs do not cook once added).  While the butter mixture cools whisk together flour, baking powder, espresso powder, & salt in a medium bowl.  Once the butter mixture is cooled add the eggs one at a time.  Beat well after each addition & scrape down the sides as needed. Next add in the flour mixture stirring until just combined.  Stir in the chips or other additions of your choice. Pour the batter into your prepared pan, spreading it to the edges with a wet spatula (or your wet fingers) & smoothing out the top.

Bake the bars for 30 to 32 minutes, until they've risen, and their top is shiny and golden. Bake for the shorter amount of time in a darker pan; the longer time in a light/shiny pan. A cake tester inserted into the center won't come out clean; in fact, the center of the very middle of the pan may look quite molten when you dig into it. So long as no wet batter is showing farther out towards the edges the bars are done. (Do not over bake!) As the bars cool the center will solidify. 
Remove the bars from the oven, and use a heatproof spatula to press down the risen edges; this will make bars with flat, rather than humped tops. Let the bars cool completely before cutting; overnight is best. Once bars are cool, wrap airtight. Store wrapped bars @ room temperature for a couple of days.

Lesson #127

Okay, folks today’s lesson is #127.  When you are getting all of your ingredients prepped and ready for a recipe put up the unnecessary ones.  Why?  So that smaller ingredients like 2 tsps of vanilla don’t get hidden behind your giant canister of flour.

The answer is yes.  Yes, I did forget to add in the 2 tsps of vanilla called for in my recipe.  Yes, the bars were still good but you (I)could tell there was something missing. Or that they needed something more.  With that thought in mind I sprinkled some coarse sea salt on top.  It helped but they still weren’t “right”.   I didn’t take any photos but my final solution was to top the bars with vanilla ice cream and some salted caramel sauce.    Better!

Today’s lesson was brought to you by me but the recipe was brought to you by Lori from Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness.  For those of you that haven’t met Lori I suggest you hop on over, grab this recipe, and take a look around.  Lori is as real as it gets.  I’m in awe of all that she makes.  I admit I’m picky and don’t know if I would like it all but I like that she isn’t afraid to try new things.  When I think of daring, I think of Lori!

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Bars

These chocolate chip cinnamon bars were good and I loved the texture of them but they didn’t become something special until I nuked them in the microwave and topped them with my Roasted Banana Buttermilk Ice Cream. (I hope to post that soon). 

Oh, yeah, now we’re talking!  On their own the bars and especially the ice cream were good but they didn’t have me looking  for an excuse to make them again.  Together? It’s a whole other story!  I ate one and seriously contemplated a second but knew if I did I would be struggling to fit into my clothes the next day.  :(

Each of my three and their friend ate two the night I made them and finished up the pan the following afternoon.  So maybe you shouldn’t take my opinion serious AND they ate theirs plain. 

I saw these on Smitten Sugar’s and she got them from Julia’s blog, Dozen Flours.

Technorati Tags: bars,chocolate chips,cinnamon

Does this look like your cake?

I made this cake one afternoon and was very surprised at how lovely it was.  It was  light, fluffy, and delicately moist but here’s my dilemma I don't know who to give credit for it.  I know I didn't find it on one of my regular haunts and I've lost my print out of the recipe.  I want to say that the words sour cream were in the name but when I googled sour cream coffee cake a gazillion links pop up.  I can’t remember if the recipe called for cinnamon sugar to be sprinkled on top or if that was my own addition and I know I cut back on the chocolate chips.  I baked mine in 3 mini loaf pans and 1 small ramekin.

Please, if this looks or sounds like your cake by all means speak up.  I think it has tremendous potential and would like to make it again with a few tweaks. Instead of chocolate chips ( I cut back on those the first time) I'd love to add in some cinnamon ones and toasted nuts are always a wonderful addition. By the way you should know that your recipe doesn't specify when to add the butter.  Luckily I saw it on the counter just before I poured the batter into my pans.  I admit my first thought was uh,oh, I goofed but no, I read and re-read the recipe, you left it out. I went ahead and added it in, fortunately it was very soft and mixed in fine. So, please, if you recognize this cake let know and can I have the recipe? (Abby, I need to try the coffee cake you raved about!)

Note:  I made this almost two months ago so this photos are quite as nice as my more recent ones.  I’d like to think I’m improving! :) 

Here’s a little of the first “B”, baseball!  My brother Joseph (in the white shirt) took most of these photos of the Twins.  Devon is #4 and Jalen is #13.  The other man in the photos is Papi, my father.

Technorati Tags: cinnamon,chocolate chips,coffee cake,sour cream