TWD: Snickery Squares

Thanks to Erin of Dinner and Dessert for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Snickery Squares.  While I'm not usually a big fan of peanuts, I really like Snickers bars, so I was curious to see how this one would turn out.  

All in all, it was an interesting experiment.  The shortbread crust was pretty straightforward, and I like the way it turned out.  I'm not sure how much I like the store-bought dulce de leche that I found--if I do this again, I may have to try making my own, or substitute some other sort of caramel. What really surprised me was how much I like the caramel-coated peanuts. They were easier to make than I expected, and quite addictive to munch on.  =)  I realized tonight when I was looking over the recipe that I messed up on the chocolate glaze.  It says to used 1/2 stick of butter.  For some reason, when I was finishing these up Sunday night, my tired brain read that as a full stick of butter.  They still ended up tasting quite good, but that explains why the top layer was thicker than I expected.  And the increased thickness may be why I was having such a hard time cutting neat squares.  The finished bars are quite rich, so I cut them a bit smaller than the recipe recommended.  

One tip that I can pass along that works well for me...  Instead of buttering the pan, I lined it with non-stick foil, since I figured that the dulce de leche would have a tendency to stick to the pan.  Since I don't have a silicone pan liner, I also put non-stick foil on the baking sheet that I used for the coated peanuts, instead of using parchment.  It worked extremely well.  

Snickery Squares
(adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)

For the Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp powdered sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten

For the Filling:
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp water
1 ½ cups salted peanuts
About 1 ½ cups store-bought dulce de leche

For the Topping:
7 ounces bittersweet, coarsely chopped
½ stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature

Getting Ready:
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 8-inch square pan (I used a Pyrex pan lined with non-stick foil) and put it on a baking sheet (I didn't bother with the baking sheet).

To Make the Crust:
Toss the flour, sugar, powdered sugar and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Toss in the pieces of cold butter and pulse about 12 times, until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Pour the yolk over the ingredients and pulse until the dough forms clumps and curds--stop before the dough comes together in a ball.  Turn the dough into the buttered pan and gently press it evenly across the bottom of the pan. Prick the dough with a fork and slide the sheet into the oven.

Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, or until it takes on just a little color around the edges (mine took 18 minutes). Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature before filling.

To Make the Filling:
Have a parchment or silicone mat-lined baking sheet at the ready (I used non-stick foil to line the pan), as well as a long-handled wooden spoon and a medium heavy bottomed saucepan.
Put the sugar and water in the saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Keeping the heat fairly high, continue to cook the sugar, without stirring, until it just starts to color. Toss in the peanuts and immediately start stirring. Keep stirring, to coat the peanuts with sugar. Within a few minutes, they will be covered with sugar and turn white—keep stirring until the sugar turns back into caramel. When the peanuts are coated with a nice deep amber caramel, remove the pan from the heat and turn the nuts out onto the baking sheet, using the wooden spoon to spread them out as best you can. Cool the nuts to room temperature.  When they are cool enough to handle, separate the nuts or break them into small pieces. Divide the nuts in half. Keep half of the nuts whole or in biggish pieces for the filling, and finely chop the other half for the topping.  Spread the dulce de leche over the shortbread base and sprinkle over the whole candied nuts.

To Make the Topping:
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove chocolate from the heat and gently stir in the butter, stirring until it is fully blended into the chocolate.  Pour the chocolate over the dulce de leche, smoothing it with a long metal icing spatula, then sprinkle over the rest of the peanuts. Slide the pan into the fridge to set the topping, about 20 minutes; if you’d like to serve the squares cold, keep them refrigerated for at least 3 hours before cutting.
Cut into 16 bars.