Sugar Cookie Bars

This recipe for Sugar Cookie Bars couldn’t be an easier treat for the holiday weekend – or any other weekend, for that matter! I love a good mash-up, and this recipe is another great one using two past recipes I’ve made here on Plenty Sweet Life. The cookie part is the recipe for Moravian White Christmas Cookies and the frosting is a basic Buttercream Frosting recipe used on several other recipes. This was a fun one to make, and I loved making it festive. You all know how I feel about making things festive. Haha! The Fourth of July was always a big day for our family when I was growing up. We would either go to Grandma and Grandpa’s church for their big picnic in the park, or we’d have friends and family at our house at the lake to enjoy the day with swimming, food, and fireworks. Have I mentioned that I love the lake? Have I mentioned that I love to swim? Have I mentioned that I love the 4th of July? I think I have. Maybe about a million times! 🙂

I loved the lake and I miss it sooooo much. I miss the lake and I miss those 4th of Julys back when me and my sister were growing up. It’s hard for me to not have any of those loved ones here any more – Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, and Dad are all gone now. The holiday is different now, but my family has learned to find our own way to enjoy the day, as we all do. Life is all about change, and nothing stays the same. Time to make even more memories with the next generation. 🙂

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Sugar Cookie Bars

Cream thoroughly:

1 cup butter or margarine (I used butter)

2 cups sugar

Add, one at a time:

4 eggs

Beat well after each addition.

Gradually add, blending well after each addition:

4 cups flour

Press dough out onto lightly greased sheet pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 12-17 minutes, or until the middle is set and baked through.

Cool.

Frost with Buttercream Frosting.

Buttercream Frosting

Cream until fluffy:

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

Mix in:

2 cups powdered sugar

Add:

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (I used a clear vanilla)

Beat in:

2-3 Tablespoons milk, depending on consistency you want

Beat until smooth.

Top with sprinkles, candies, chopped candy bars, chopped cookies, or chopped fruit.

I’ve never tried this before, but I know that this recipe makes a darn good cookie, so I was pretty sure they would turn out all right.

The dough is a bit sticky, and getting it spread out evenly was a bit tricky.

I put a little flour on my hands and just patted it into the pan. Palms seemed to work better than fingers for this. Make it as even as you can so it will bake evenly.

Into the oven to bake until it’s set in the middle. I let it go until it was set but not too firm. In fact, I thought it might not actually be done, but it was. You don’t want the bars to be over baked – they’d be too hard, I think.

I made a batch of Buttercream Frosting and spread it over the top. My family was going to say I should double it next time – it wasn’t very thick – but it was just fine.

Can you ever have enough festive toppings on something like this? I think not! I used colored sugars, sprinkles, and chocolate candies to make this one beautiful and festive as heck, but you could use chopped candy bars, chopped cookies, or even chopped fruit if you want to.

Hello, red, white, and blue!

These were so, so good, and I can’t wait to make them again and try something different for the toppings!

I think you’re going to like these bars. It makes a whole sheet pan of bars, so it’s enough to feed a crowd (depending on how large or small you cut them). These were stashed in our extra downstairs frig where no one could find them ahead of the holiday weekend. I did save a few out for me and the hubs to enjoy before the weekend – cook’s treat! Make a batch of these very festive Sugar Cookie Bars for the weekend – you still have time!

Pantry Shelf Cereal Bars

I made these Pantry Shelf Cereal Bars during what else? Cleaning out my pantry! Why not use up some things that need to get used and make a delicious treat at the same time?!! Yes! They’re on the order of Rice Krispies Treats, only better because they’re using up things from my pantry that need to be used, therefore making more room in said pantry. I love that, and my husband loved it, too, because he was the one who got to eat them! 🙂

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Pantry Shelf Cereal Bars

Melt in a large microwave safe bowl:

4 Tablespoons butter

1 package of large marshmallows – about 40 (I used what I had left in a bag and there were 48 in there)

Heat on HIGH for 2 minutes, stir, then on HIGH for another minute.

Stir until smooth.

Add:

6 cups cereal

You could also add dried fruit, seeds, nuts, candies, whatever you need to get out off your pantry shelf.

Stir until well coated.

Press down with a buttered spatula in a 8″ x 8″ greased pan (I used parchment paper AND greased it so I could get the bars out easier).

Cool and cut into bars.

These are the ingredients. That’s it. But look how much stuff I got out of the pantry! They took up a lot of room!

These marshmallows were a bit dicey, but they worked great. This is what they look like melted.

This is what they look like once you stir them. Amazing.

Cereal goes in.

This is the hard part – stirring in the cereal. It really does get VERY sticky.

I lined the pan with parchment, but just a good greasing with butter will do.

I took a spatula coated with butter to spread the mixture out and flatten it. You know the drill.

Cut into bars and voila – you’re done!

Pantry clean-out really is all it’s cracked up to be. Now is the time to get rid of the extra doo-dads and make room for the freshness of summertime cooking. I might just have to go back and see if I can “get rid of” anything else in there. Maybe some chocolate chips or peanut butter or something. I mean a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Let’s see – what can I make with those? Hmm. Well, in the meantime, we’re going to enjoy these Pantry Shelf Cereal Bars and think of more treats to make with extra pantry ingredients! 🙂

Frypan Date Honey Bars

Today’s recipe for Frypan Date Honey Bars comes from my other Grandma. She would write her favorites in one of her old church cookbooks, and this is one recipe she wrote in there. I’d like to think that this one came from her mother, who lived with Grandma and Gramp for a few years at the end of her life. This photo is of my great-grandparents on their wedding day! I love this so much!

I sure hope this recipe is one of my great-grandmother’s. It sounds like it could have been originally made on a wood cookstove. It uses a frypan – so I used an old cast iron pan that might have belonged to her. It uses honey instead of sugar, and might have been from a time when sugar wasn’t so easy to get but honey might have been accessible on a farm (both sides of my family were farmers). It says to bake it at 280 degrees, which is a very low temperature, and seems like how low the temp would be in an old cookstove. Well, we’ll never know for sure, but I love the idea of the recipe being from my great-grandma and baking these bars in a cast iron pan. Let’s get started with these very easy to make and amazingly delicious bars.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Frypan Date Honey Bars

Mix together:

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Set aside.

Combine:

3 eggs

1 cup honey

1/3 cup soft shortening (I used butter)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat well.

Add flour mixture and beat well.

Add:

1 cup dates, chopped

1 cup nuts (I used pecans)

Preheat frypan (I put the pan in the oven while I was chopping the dates and nuts), and grease well (I used butter for this).

(I used a pan that was 9 1/2″ across the top, and says 7″ on the bottom, even though it is more like 8″ across. This made the bars a bit thick and that made them have to bake longer. Next time I’d use a larger pan and that would probably make the time to bake them about right for the recipe at 280 degrees.)

Bake at 280 degrees for 30-35 minutes (this was hard to see on the bottom of the card, but I think this is what it says) – because I used a small sized pan, I had to bake these an extra 25 minutes – a larger pan would have been about right for this low temperature.

Sprinkle powdered sugar over top after bars are cooled (this was also hard to read, but the bars are “plenty sweet” and a sprinkling of powdered sugar seemed more appropriate than topping the bars with powdered sugar icing or glaze, but you could do that).

These bars use pretty simple ingredients – in fact, I’d say they’re a great pantry recipe – as long as you have the nuts, dates, and honey.

The batter was a little lumpy as first, but keep mixing and the lumps will come out.

There are a LOT of nuts and dates in there for this small amount of batter.

The batter is LOADED!

The recipe said to heat up the pan, so I put it in the oven while I chopped the nuts and dates. I used a stick of butter with with the paper rolled back to grease the pan well.

Here we go – into the oven!

Here it is right out of the oven – the top has some bubbles, but it won’t matter once you dig in! 🙂

The recipe said something about powdered sugar at the end, but I couldn’t read it because the recipe just below it had been put over the bottom of the recipe – and the tape was discolored. Oh well – time to wing it! I sprinkled powdered sugar over the top of the bars, but you could make a powdered sugar frosting or glaze over it if you want to. I don’t think it needs a frosting – they’re “plenty sweet”!

I highly recommend trying these while they’re still a little warm.

The smaller pan I used made the bars more the size of a piece of cake. A larger pan would make them more like a bar – not so high.

I have to say – these bars are one of my new favorites! I love that you can make them in a frypan, and I think that making a batch of these bars in the pan would make someone a wonderful gift – welcome to your new home, thank you teacher for doing all you do for my child, happy bridal shower, celebrate the weekend. The list could go on and on. Everyone loves cast iron pans these days, and making a batch of these delicious bars full of honey, dates, and nuts would be lovely – don’t forget to include the recipe! I hope you try these Frypan Date Honey Bars and start celebrating something – anything!

Cherry Bars

Today we’re trying Grandma’s recipe for Cherry Bars. I don’t remember Grandma making these bars for us when we were growing up, and I think I’d remember these – they’re very similar to the Cherry Walnut Bars my family makes at Christmastime. These bars are very decadent, and because we all know how she loved things that were “plenty sweet”, I’m not surprised that she kept this particular recipe. The bars ended up being pink, so I thought they’d be perfect for Valentine’s Day. Speaking of valentines, this shot is of Grandma and Grandpa about the time they were engaged, sometime in the mid 1930’s. Do these two look happy or what?!! I love this photo, and I love that it is of the two of them sitting in an arbor with what looks like roses climbing on it.

These two were very special. I still miss them every single day. Ok – let me dry the tears and get back to the recipe. Because of the ingredients, I thought they’d be more gelatin-like and maybe a bright pink from the cherry juice. Nope – they ended up to be very marshmallow-like and a lovey bright pink. They are sticky and sweet and a lot of fun to eat! I got a vision of Grandma and her sisters eating these bars and laughing at each other as they try to lick the sticky marshmallow off of their fingers. Those sisters had a lot of fun together, and watching them eat these bars would be a LOT of fun!

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Cherry Bars

Mix together for the crust:

3/4 cup melted butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cup flour

Pat into 9″ x 13″ pan and prick with a fork.

Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes.

Put in a large bowl:

1/2 cup cold water

2 packages Knox gelatin

Set aside.

Bring to a boil:

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup cold water (she says to use cherry juice for this – I did that)

Boil for 2 minutes.

Pour over gelatin mixture and beat until stiff.

When stiff fold in:

1/2 cup nuts, chopped

1/2 cup maraschino cherries, chopped

Pour over crust and sprinkle with coconut (I used about 1 cup).

Let cool and cut into bars (I put them in the refrigerator and that made them a bit less sticky – they were also waaay less sticky the next day).

This has a pretty simple, 3 ingredient crust.

I used the back of my hand and knuckles to spread out the crust. It takes awhile, but you’ll get there! Don’t forget to prick it with a fork. Into the oven it goes!

There are a few steps in this recipe, but it’s not as hard as it looks. While the crust is baking, I got the rest of the steps going. First I put the gelatin in the cold water and set aside.

The next step – put the cold water (or cherry juice, if you’re using that instead) and sugar into a pot and get it boiling. It looks like Grandma got this recipe from a friend of hers named Pearl, but somewhere back in the day (whether it was Pearl or not), you know someone had Maraschino cherries leftover from Christmas and figured out how to use them in this very delicious recipe. 🙂

Here is the crust out of the oven. Let it cool while you’re getting the rest of the ingredients ready to pour on.

The cherry juice/sugar mixture needs to boil for 2 minutes. In the meantime, I chopped the nuts and cherries and got the coconut ready. You could chop these before you start the recipe, too.

Once the cherry juice/sugar mixture has boiled, it’s ready to pour onto the gelatin mixture. I used a hand mixer to mix them together. Grandma said to mix until “stiff”. I mixed it for 10 minutes and it never really got “stiff”, but it did get thick.

I decided this was thick enough. You can see how thick it is – those are bubbles! (This is where I figured out that they’re more a marshmallow-like bar than a gelatin-like bar.) Fold in the nuts and cherries and pour it onto the crust.

I did use the coconut on these bars, but next time I’d use sprinkles or maybe finely chopped nuts. My husband didn’t care for the coconut.

They’re pretty and pink!

These bars are fluffy and pink and just like a marshmallow – they’re a special treat and they ARE “plenty sweet”! You can make these a day or two ahead – they are less sticky that way – so you’ll be ready for any of your valentines who’d like a sweet treat! They are a nice cherry flavored bar that could maybe even be cut into heart shapes with a cookie cutter (make sure to spray the cutter with non-stick spray first). I hope you try these Cherry Bars – your valentine will appreciate this “plenty sweet” treat!

8 of My Favorite Bar Recipes

If you’re from Minnesota, you know what I’m talking about when I say that today I’m sharing 8 of My Favorite Bar Recipes. We all know what a bar is – that delicious favorite of church ladies everywhere. They’re quick to make – quicker than making cookies – so they make a perfect treat! They’re all so, so good! Let me know which one is YOUR favorite! 🙂

Lemon Love Notes

Special K Bars or Rice Krispie Bars

Mud Hen Bars

Bars or Dessert #3

Chocolate Revel Bars

Soda Cracker Bars

Rocky Road Squares

Dreams

Apple Blonde Brownies with Maple Cinnamon Icing

Today’s recipe for Apple Blonde Brownies with Maple Cinnamon Icing is one that I made up using the Chocolate Chip Blonde Brownies recipe, but using the delicious Honeycrisp Apple to make a new, decadent version of those brownies. I think they turned out pretty delicious, if I do say so myelf! September is almost over, but apple season is not. This is a treat that you can continue to make all through October and into November. These bars are so chock full of apple and cinnamon, they just reek of fall. I hope you’ll give these a try and “wow” everyone you know. 

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Apple Blonde Brownies with Maple Cinnamon Icing

Sift together:

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Melt:

1/3 cup butter

Add to the butter:

1 cup packed brown sugar

Cool.

Add:

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

Fold in:

1-2 apples, chopped (I used 2 apples, but I think you could just use 1)

Add flour mixture to the egg mixture a little at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Fold in:

1-2 apples, chopped (I used 2 apples, but I think you could just use 1)

Pour into a 9″ x 9″ pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in pan.

Frost with Maple Cinnamon Icing.

Maple Cinnamon Icing

Mix together:

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 Tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon softened butter

1-2 Tablespoons milk, or enough to make the icing just thin enough to spread

These bars use simple ingredients that you probably have in your pantry.

The batter is a bit thick.

I tried to stuff 2 whole chopped apples into the thick batter, but it was tough. I think 1 apple would work just fine.

It’s pretty loaded with apple!

After baking, you can still see how full of apple they are.

Slather on that icing – it is so tasty and full of cinnamon and maple.

I guess they were just a little bit warm when I put on the icing. I mean, how bad can that be?

Seriously, can you ever really have too much apple? I think not!

I sent some of these bars home with our kids and my son’s response to them was, “those bars were gross”, which is family code for “those bars were unbelievably amazing”. Yeah – I think that’s what the code is. It is. 🙂 These are rich, full of apple, and covered in that ridiculously cinnamon-y and maple-y icing. They’re a bit on the decadent side, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I hope you try to make a pan of these Apple Blonde Brownies with Maple Cinnamon Icing and just keep on enjoying fall as long as you can!

 

 

 

Lingonberry Almond Bars

I felt the need to have my ancestors close last week (specifically my Swedish ancestors), so I made up a recipe for Lingonberry Almond Bars. Our family usually keeps lingonberry recipes for holiday time, but occasionally we’ll opt for something new at other times of the year. This is one of those times. I love this photo of my great-grandmother’s youngest sister picking water lilies in Sweden when she took her mother back home for a visit. As we found on our trip to Sweden and Norway several years ago, the countryside looks a lot like where we live now!

This photo doesn’t look posed at all, does it?! 🙂 She’s so cute – I love her hat and of course, I love that she’s by a lake.

Back to the bars – I have made the recipe for Chocolate Revel Bars for the blog in the past, and this is how I decided to try this new recipe – I just used lingonberry jam in place of the chocolate fudge middle in the bars. This recipe also just makes a 9″ x 9″ pan instead of a cake pan – the bars are so rich, you really only need a small one. At least that’s what I keep telling myself! 🙂

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Lingonberry Almond Bars

Cream together:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Add:

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cup flour

1 /2 cup oatmeal

Pat 2/3 of mixture into the bottom of a 9″ x 9″ pan, saving the remaining 1/3 for the topping.

Put on top of crust:

1 10-ounce jar of Lingonberry jam (the jar I have just says “Lingonberries” on it, but it is jam)

Sprinkle remaining crust mixture over top.

Top with:

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (I went an extra 3 minutes because I’ve never made these before and I wondered if the jam would be runnier than the fudge in the original).

Cool and cut into small squares.

I used a smaller pan, but the steps are the same. Pat 2/3 of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of the pan and reserve the rest.

I found my hand worked best for patting it in.

Next, dump the whole jar of jam right onto the crust and spread it out.

The rest of the oatmeal mixture goes on and then sprinkle on the sliced almonds. Ready for the oven!

Out of the oven it’s golden and looks delicious!

Oh, wow. I can’t wait to try one of these!

Lingonberry and almond is right up Grandma’s alley! I’m sure she’d say this is such a “Swedish thing”! Ha!

The whole family agreed that these are just gross – NOT! They are full of flavor – the tartness of the lingonberries with all that butter and brown sugar, and then the almond. They are perfection, and just what I needed. Sometimes you just have to bake up a little love – even if it’s for yourself! 🙂 Don’t be afraid to try a little tweaking to some of your favorite recipes and make something just a little bit different. If I hadn’t tried that with the Chocolate Revel Bars, I wouldn’t have this delicious recipe for Lingonberry Almond Bars!

Halloween Brownies

Today’s recipe for Halloween Brownies is another one I tried to make using the recipe for Black and White Bars. The original bars turned out so well, that I wanted to try and make them for Halloween. My intention was to make the swirls orange instead of chocolate, and make them in a 9″ x 9″ pan instead of a full 9″ x 13″ pan. Well, let’s just say they didn’t turn out how I planned. They were delicious and I was able to save them and make them festive in the end, just not how I originally envisioned. Oh well, on to Plan B! The secret to making them festive – sprinkles, of course! I’m showing the original recipe for Black and White Bars here, and I’ll show how I tried to change them up a bit. I love that my mom first made this recipe in April of 1970! Ok, let’s make some very festive bars!

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Halloween Brownies

Cream:

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

Add:

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup nuts (I didn’t add nuts here)

Pour 3/4 of batter into greased 9″ x 9″ pan (the recipe doesn’t say to grease the pan, but I recommend it).

At this point, the recipe says to add melted chocolate to the remaining batter (and you could do this here if you want to make a small pan of the Black and White Bars), but this is where I went rogue. I added orange food coloring to the remaining batter. This didn’t really work out very well, as you’ll see as we go along.

Add spoonsful of the orange batter on top of the plain batter and swirl (I used the flat end of a skewer for this) as for marble cake.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

It’s a thick batter – and there’s not a lot of it.

I thought I had about 3/4 of the batter in the pan, but it turned out to be more like 2/3. I added orange food coloring to the rest of it.

I used a spoon to drop the orange batter on top of the plain, but as you can see, it’s already looking like I left too much batter to turn orange.

Yep – it looks like too much orange. Might not get many swirls.

Of course, I had to add some sprinkles because these brownies don’t have any frosting. Frosting wouldn’s allow you to see the swirls.

Well, this is how they turned out. Just as I thought, you can’t really see any swirls. Boo.

I decided to cut out one piece so I could see if you could see any differentiation at all. You can see a difference! If I had used less batter for the orange, it would have looked really cute! Next time!

Then I had an idea. Cover up the mistake with frosting! No one will ever know! They’ll still be festive and have orange and white in the bars! I used a simple powdered sugar frosting: 2 cups powdered sugar, 2-3 Tablespoons milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1 teaspoon softened butter.

Then, of course, I had to add the obligatory sprinkles! We HAVE to make them festive!

Look! You can still see the white and orange!

These brownies are really VERY festive. Next time I make them – and I WILL make them again – I’ll use less batter to color orange, and then I won’t need the frosting. They did really get “plenty sweet” with frosting on, and while not necessary, it did cover my mistake. The brownies are delicious, and everyone you know will love them! Try something new and make a small pan of these Halloween Brownies today!

 

Chewy Coffee Brownies

I had never seen or heard of this recipe for Chewy Coffee Brownies that I found in my mom’s recipe file. That’s funny because my mom was a chocoholic and she LOVED brownies, but she HATED coffee! She was a tea drinker. Well, this recipe for brownies is a little bit different – the only chocolate in them are the chocolate chips! They’re more like a Blonde Brownie, but with a nice coffee flavor. That’s why I’m surprised my mom kept this recipe – there’s coffee in it and not even close to enough chocolate in it! While these brownies don’t call for frosting in the recipe, my mom was probably thinking she would put chocolate frosting on them to both add more chocolate and tone down the coffee flavor a bit. Yep – I’m sure that’s what she was thinking! 🙂

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Chewy Coffee Brownies

Combine in a small saucepan:

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup reduced-calorie stick margarine (I used butter – I don’t use margarine)

2 1/2 Tablespoons instant coffee granules

Place over low heat and cook for 4 minutes or until butter melts and mixture is smooth, stirring frequently.

Combine sugar mixture with:

1 Tablespoon vanilla

2 egg whites (I used the whole eggs)

Beat at low speed.

Combine:

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Gradually add to creamed mixture, beating well.

Stir in:

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Spread in 9″ x 13″ pan sprayed with non-stick spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-23 minutes.

The first ingredients used in the brownies are butter, brown sugar, and instant coffee granules. Good start!

Next, in go the vanilla and eggs.

Combine the dry ingredients . . .

. . . and mix well. Stir in the chocolate and you’re good to go.

With the pan greased, it takes a little bit to get the batter to spread into the corners.

Out of the oven and smelling divine!

It helps to have these brownies with a cup of coffee to accentuate the coffee flavor, but it’s not absolutely necessary!

Oh. My. Goodness. If you like coffee, you’re going to enjoy these brownies. That little bit of chocolate just adds the flavor to enhance both the coffee AND the chocolate. They ARE chewy. They ARE delicious. They ARE ridiculously good. They ARE easy to make. Checks all my boxes. Try these Chewy Coffee Brownies and you’ll see that they’ll check all of your boxes, too!

Dreams

The recipe for these Dreams comes from one of Grandma’s sisters. Grandma and her sisters exchanged recipes all the time, and they only shared the most delicious ones! They would always volunteer to bring treats to church functions, family functions, and friend functions, and they never had enough recipes! I’m sure even at the different functions, church members, family and friends would also exchange the best recipes and expect only the best from each other. Well, they had the system down, because they sure had a lot of amazingly delicious recipes between them all. This one is no exception – it’s delicious. Again – this one seems more like a candy bar than a cookie bar. They are that good.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Dreams

Use an ungreased 9″ x 13″ pan for this.

First Mixture:

Mix together:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

Pat into pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Second Mixture:

2 eggs, well beaten

2 heaping teaspoons flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup coconut

2 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup walnuts

Spread on top of the first mixture and bake 25 minutes.

Cool and cut.

(There are changes to the original recipe, and I went with the changes. I learned a long time ago to do what is changed because they really do know best – if it’s changed, it was for a reason!)

Here is the baked first layer.

On goes the second mixture

This is the whole thing all baked and ready to cool and cut.

Oh my goodness.

These bars are so chewy and delicious – totally more like a candy bar.

While they don’t look that impressive, these bars are absolutely delicious! They’re simple to make and make a large batch, so you’ll have enough to freeze for another time. I still say they’re more like a candy bar – they really ARE that good! You’re going to love these Dreams – and they are that – the stuff of dreams!