Citrus Sunday - Triple Citrus Bars

I've mentioned before that I love cooking magazines.  It was such a revelation the first time I ever read one (thanks to my wonderful husband who thought it would give me something to do while I was wiped out by the flu 13 years ago).  There are so many enticing new recipes in every issue!  Lots are seasonally appropriate, so sometimes I'm inspired to drop what I'm doing and make a new recipe right away.  That happened with the July/August 2006 issue of Cook's Illustrated.  Amazing that I remember that almost 6 years ago, isn't it?  The recipe that grabbed my attention was for Key Lime Bars.  I immediately made a double batch to take to a 4th of July potluck.  They were a huge hit and several people asked for the recipe.  I made the bars several times shortly after that, but as often happens, I got sidetracked by new recipes after that and have only made them maybe once or twice since then.

When I was trying to come up with a good citrus recipe for my blog event, I considered several ideas.  I even made an orange & vanilla bundt cake that turned out pretty good, but just wasn't quite what I was looking for.  I'm always short on time and frequently indecisive as well, so it really isn't surprising that I was sitting here yesterday (yay for a Saturday off!) still trying to decide what to make.  I turned to Eat Your Books to see what I could find on my bookshelves.  I bought some limes when we were shopping Friday night (to add to the lemons, tangerines & tangelos already in the fridge), so I started off searching that.  Nothing jumped out and grabbed me, so I thought to try searching for "citrus" instead.  Bingo!

Triple Citrus Bars came up a couple times in the list--they're a variation on the Key Lime Bars, and can be found in the magazine (online) as well as in the new Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  Instead of just lime juice and zest (you can use either key limes or regular Persian limes), you use lemon and orange juice and zest as well.  The zests are used in equal amounts (1 1/2 teaspoons of each), but most of the juice is lime, with just a tablespoon each of lemon and orange.  I actually used tangelo zest and juice instead of orange, since that's what I had.

Rather than graham crackers, the crust is made with animal crackers.  They are pulsed in the food processor along with some brown sugar and a bit of salt and then melted butter is added to bind everything together.  This recipe gave me a change to use a new baking pan that I bought myself for my birthday--a Fat Daddio's 8" square baking pan.  (I love my Pyrex baking pans, but they don't work well for everything.)  The crust is baked for 18-20 minutes, which allows enough time to mix up the filling.  The filling consists of cream cheese, the zests, a bit of salt, sweetened condensed milk, an egg yolk, and the citrus juices.  Once the crust is baked and cooled for a few minutes, the filling is added and the bars are baked for another 15-20 minutes.  The bars are allowed to cool to room temperature, then are refrigerated for at least a couple hours.

The verdict?  These aren't quite as tart as the straight lime ones, but I like the flavor that the mix of fruits brings to the bars.  As the test kitchen cooks determined, the addition of the cream cheese and egg yolk helps firm up the filling so that it can be cut into neat bars.  I'm definitely not going to let so much time pass before I make these bars again.

If you'd like to try the recipe, you can find it here on the Cook's Illustrated website, or in the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  And be sure to check out all the other yummy citrus recipes that my blogging friends have made!  If you'd like to join us in the future, leave a comment or email me at diskitchennotebook at gmail dot com, and I'll add you to my email list.

There's no wrong way to eat a blondie

If I had to pick a favorite dessert, it would be brownies.  Just the fudgy or chewy kinds, not the cakey ones.  I have a favorite recipe, but I'm more than willing to try new ones, because you never know when you might find something else that's great.  There are times, though, when I want something not as chocolatey.  Lemon bars are another favorite bar cookie, but they're a little more fussy and time consuming (it always seems to take me forever to juice the lemons; my favorite recipe uses a lot of juice).    Things with brown sugar are something else I like, so sometimes I just make blondies.

My favorite recipe (which I really need to blog one of these days) uses melted butter, lots of brown sugar, and no chemical leavening.  So the texture ends up being rather dense and fudgy, a lot like the brownies I prefer.  This weekend, though, I got to try a new version, thanks to Tuesdays with Dorie.  Our hostess this week is Nicole of Cookies on Friday, and she picked Chewy Chunky Blondies for us to make.  Dorie's version of blondies reads a lot like a chocolate chip cookie recipe (it uses the creaming method), but as usual, she adds all sorts of interesting things, to the point where there's almost more stuff than batter. =)

I decided to halve the recipe--in case we didn't like them that much, or we liked them too much. =)  For the additions, I immediately eighty-sixed the coconut (if you've read my blog for any length of time you'll know why).  I also decided to skip the nuts, since I wanted Brianna and Gillian to actually eat these.  They don't seem to like any nuts but cashews and pistachios, and prefer to eat those out of hand, not in things.  That left me with the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips.  For the chocolate chips, I went with bittersweet (Guittard 63%) since I knew the batter would be sweet.  That made me worry about the butterscotch chips, which tend to be incredibly sweet.  I wasn't up for that, but still wanted to add something besides the chocolate chips.  I recently reorganized my chips collection (yes, I think it qualifies as a collection--I can think of about ten different kinds in my pantry right now) and I remembered that I had a bunch of peanut butter chips.  Perfect!  I used 100g each of chocolate and PB chips for my half recipe.

I mixed the dough by hand, like I do with chocolate chip cookies and my usual blondie recipe.  The process was pretty straightforward.  Cream together the butter and sugars (white and brown), then mix in the egg and vanilla.  Next up, dry ingredients (AP flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt).  I kept the original amount of salt even though I cut everything else in half, to help combat the sweetness a bit more.  Finally, I stirred in the chips.  The batter was very stiff, and was a bit of a challenge to spread evenly in the pan.  I used an 8" square Pyrex pan (I really need to get a metal 8" pan one of these days), but left the  oven temp at 325F.  To make sure I'd be able to get the blondies out of the pan without a problem, I lined it with non-stick foil (I love that stuff!).  I ended up baking them for 30 minutes or so (might have been a minute or two longer--I was upstairs and didn't hear the timer right away).

The verdict? I was prepared not too like these that much.  After all, I messed with the add-ins, guessed at the baking time, and was worried about the texture, since they seemed to have puffed around the edges.  I was thinking they'd be cakey, or dry.  Well, I shouldn't have worried.  Gillian pronounced them one of the best things I've made.  Brianna inhaled hers as well.  Jamie enjoyed them, too (especially the peanut butter chips).  I liked the texture quite a bit--the top was crunchy and the inside chewy without being overly gooey.

If you'd like to try these for yourself (and have fun deciding what to mix in), you can find the recipe over at Nicole's blog.  And be sure to check out this week's links to the other TWD bakers.

A jumble of good stuff

When I was a kid, my mom thought nothing of throwing us in the car and driving to my grandparents' house for the weekend.  It was only about a three-hour drive.  I have lots of good food memories from sitting in Gramma's kitchen.  It was even better when there were other people there, too.  One of my favorite people to see was my Aunt Maureen.  She and I share a birthday, nine years apart.  (My mom was the oldest and Aunt Maureen the youngest of seven kids.)  Aunt Maureen liked to bake (still does, as far as I know).  And I think she may be responsible for my tendency to eat baked goods for breakfast.   Not that she let us kids have any, but we saw her doing it.  =)

As I was making this week's TWD recipe, I was reminded of one particular thing that I recall her baking (and eating early in the day).  I can't remember the exact time frame, but it had to be sometime in the 80s.  There was a box mix for something called Jumbles, which consisted of a brownie-ish layer with dollops of oatmeal stuff on top.  They were really good.  And hey, with oatmeal, they qualified as perfectly acceptable breakfast fare, right? =)

This week's pick is from Lillian of Confectiona's Realm.  The title of the recipe is another mouthful--Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars.  I made half the recipe, so I went with an 8" square pan.  To make my life easier, I lined the pan with non-stick foil.  The bottom layer is an oatmeal cookie-like dough, with nuts added.  The recipe calls for peanuts, but I substituted cashews.  Since I know that I don't really like cinnamon and chocolate together, I left the cinnamon out of the oatmeal mixture.  You reserve some of the dough for topping, and press the rest into the pan.  For the middle layer, you melt together sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips and a bit of butter and salt.  Once that mixture is whisked smooth, you add raisins and more nuts.  After spreading the chocolate on top of the oatmeal layer, the reserved oatmeal dough is dolloped on top of the chocolate.  I ended up baking the bars for 25 minutes.  I let them cool until room temperature before sampling.  Dorie mentions that they're good cold, but I haven't tried them that way yet.

The verdict?  Very good, but hard to eat much at once.  I cut the bars small and still had a hard time finishing one.  I enjoyed them a lot, though.  I love raisins with chocolate, so I'm not surprised that I liked the middle layer.  And the oatmeal was a nice contrast with the chocolate.  I'm not always a big fan of nuts in my desserts, but I liked the cashews, too.  Brianna and Gillian both seemed to like these, too.  (Though as usual, Gillian liked them more.)  I figured it would take us forever to eat even the half recipe I made, so most of the bars went to the daycare and B's after-school teachers.

If you'd like the recipe, head on over to Lillian's blog.  And be sure to visit some other TWD bakers to see how they did this week!

LiveSTRONG with a taste of lemon

I was very happy to see that Barbara is hosting the LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow event again this year.  I participated last year, and very much enjoyed reading all the posts from everyone else who joined in to support the fight against cancer.

As I tried to decide what to write for this post, one thing in particular was on my mind.  Regular readers of my blog (and my baking friends on Twitter) will remember that my husband Jamie had his tonsils out back in June.  What I didn't talk about much at the time was the unexpected effect that his surgery had on me.  We've been together for 12 years, and that was the first time he ever had anything medical come up (aside from the usual colds, allergies etc).  I wasn't at all ready for the near-panic attack that hit me.

My first husband, Nate, died of cancer on January 22, 1996.  Over thirteen years ago.  And as I sat in the hospital, waiting for Jamie's surgery to be done, it felt like it was yesterday.  This was a totally different situation, and part of me understood that.  But another part of me remembered what it was like to sit in a hospital and feel totally helpless in the face of a terrible disease that was destroying someone I loved.  Cancer is so hard on the people who have it.  But it's also incredibly hard on the caregivers who know that there is only so much they can do to help.  The ones who go to the doctor appointments and wait through the tests and treatments.  The ones who help their loved ones do all the daily things that they can't do for themselves.  The ones who get annoyed sometimes and just want everything to be normal again and then feel guilty for feeling that way.  The ones who are strong because they have to be, but who cry in the shower because sometimes they can only let their feelings out when they are alone.  This post is dedicated to all those people...

For this year's event, I decided to make lemon bars.  This recipe is special to me because it's based on one that Nate got from his mom.  Luscious, very tart filling on top of a shortbread crust.  This time I decided to play around with the crust.  For something just a little different, I went with Dorie Greenspan's Sweet Tart Crust.  The filling I left alone, since it's fabulous as is.

Lemon Bars
(adapted from Laverne Morrison and Dorie Greenspan)

1 recipe Sweet Tart Dough

3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (1 1/8 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (4 oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice

powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Press the tart dough evenly into an 8" square pan (I use a Pyrex pan).  Prick the dough all over with a fork.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the dough is just starting to color around the edges.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling.  In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together.  Whisk in the flour, then whisk in the lemon juice.  When the crust is ready, remove the pan from the oven.  Pour the filling over the hot crust and return the pan to the oven.  Bake for an additional 20-25 minutes, until most of the filling is set.  There may be a small section in the middle that is still slightly jiggly.  That's okay, since the bars continue to cook for a bit after being removed from the oven.  Remove the pan from the oven and place on a rack.  Let cool completely.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Be sure to check out the round-up on Barbara's blog.  She'll have it up on LiveSTRONG Day, October 2nd.  And to learn more about how you can join the fight against cancer, visit the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Crunch

I actually thought I'd get this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe done early this week, since I had the weekend off.  But life had other ideas.  My birthday was on Saturday.  We had plans to go out to dinner while some friends watched the girls.  (Yay!)  But then Jamie called me Friday evening while I was still at work to say that he'd had to pick Gillian up early from daycare because she had pink eye.  Ugh.  But he was really awesome and was able to get her in for a quick doctor appointment, so we were able to get the antibiotic drops started right away.  So we were still able to go out, since Gillian's eye was doing much better by Saturday night.  But I didn't accomplish anything but baking some bread on Saturday afternoon, since Gillian was generally cranky and difficult about taking a nap.  (For a change, Brianna gave me no trouble about it.)

We had a nice dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants that we seldom get to go to these days.  And then we wandered around Half Price Books for a bit, since we don't have enough books in the house already... =)  When we got back from dinner, we discovered that Brianna wasn't feeling well.  (Should have known the nap was suspicious...)  I'm pretty sure that she has the flu.  (Still sick as of Tuesday morning.)  So Gillian and I went by ourselves to finish the grocery shopping on Sunday (which took forever), and the rest of the day was eaten up with tending Brianna.  

I stayed home with Brianna on Monday, so I did finally have a chance to bake Monday afternoon.  (The morning was taken up by cartoons for B and napping for me, since I was up in the middle of the night with her two nights running.)  This week's recipe fortunately wasn't too difficult.  Or at least it wasn't until I decided to make it a bit more complicated. =)

For this week, Whitney of What's Left on the Table? picked the Caramel Crunch Bars.  I made a few changes to the recipe.  Someone mentioned in the P&Q that the bars were quite thin when baked in a 13" x 9" pan, so like a number of other people, I used a 9" square pan instead.  I lined it with non-stick foil so that the bars would come out easily.  The dough for the base was pretty easy to mix up, and I used both the cinnamon and instant espresso powder called for in the recipe.  I wasn't sure if I was in the mood for the toffee to go on top, though.  I did see toffee bits at the grocery store, but they were made with almonds, which are my least favorite nut.  So I decided to make my own topping.  

I checked online and found a couple of toffee recipes over at Food Network, but just couldn't get motivated to make either one.  So I went in a slightly different direction.  I had pecans in the freezer, and I thought they would be good on these bars.  I coated them in caramel using the technique used for the peanuts in the Snickery Squares (I used 3 ounces of pecans, but kept the sugar and water the same).  Once the coated pecans had cooled, I stuck them in my food processor and pulsed them until they were in small pieces.  Next I had to decide what chocolate to use.  After tasting the dough for the base, I thought that bittersweet (70%) chocolate was the best match for the espresso.  But the praline bits were almost a bit bitter, and didn't taste as good with the bittersweet chocolate.  So I used milk chocolate for the top, but only three ounces instead of six, since I was dealing with a smaller surface area and I didn't want the bars to end up too sweet.  

I baked the base for 25 minutes.  This is one recipe where I really appreciate the description Dorie gives for how to tell when things are done... "until the base is bubbly--so bubbly you can almost hear it percolating--and puckery."  That's exactly what mine was like.   I sprinkled the chopped milk chocolate over the base and popped it back in the oven for a couple minutes.  After spreading the chocolate all over with my offset spatula, I sprinkled the pecan praline on top and pressed it into the chocolate.  I let everything cool pretty much to room temperature and then put the pan in the fridge to make sure the chocolate was firm.  I used my bench scraper to cut the pan into squares.

The verdict?  Interesting, in a good way.  The bottom of the bars is quite crunchy, where the sugar and butter caramelized.  I'm not sure I like the cinnamon, but I do like the espresso in the background.  Dorie suggests using these bars to make ice cream sandwiches.  I made mine too thick for that, but I did want to try them with ice cream.  I thought about chocolate, but figured that it wouldn't be very photogenic. =)  I went with vanilla, which paired nicely with the flavors in the bars, as well as a drizzle of salted caramel sauce.  Yum!  Jamie liked it, which isn't surprising since he likes caramel and the mix of salty and sweet.  Not sure if the girls will like the bars.  I think most of them are headed to the daycare teachers so we don't eat them all. 

The recipe can be found over at Whitney's blog as well as in Baking From My Home to Yours.  And be sure to check out what all the other TWD bakers did this week!

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.