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Breakfast Bars
Jul. 6th, 2008 06:55 amI am so far behind on my posts of cute kid stuff I feel guilty posting this first, but I spent 10 minutes trying to find this recipe before I discovered it wasn't in my journal, it was in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ricevermicelli's
here.elflynn is visiting with Ellie and the kids suggested we make caramel apples. We didn't have caramel at home, so we planned to make it from scratch instead. Then I found out it needed cream and sent Jon to the store to buy some. In retrospect perhaps it would have been easier to just have him buy caramel ;-)
--Beth
Ricevermicelli's Breakfast Bar Recipe, with helpful comments
Caramel:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup (note: I use cane syrup - Lyle's GOlden - which works great.)
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter (salted probably wouldn't kill things)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Grease a large (more than 2 cup) heatproof measuring cup, and keep it near the stove while you do this.
In a medium, non-stick saucepan, heat the sugar and syrup over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until boiling. Stop stirring, and continue boiling until the mixture is a deep amber color (270 F on a candy thermometer, but it comes out fine if you just eyeball it). Remove pan from heat immedeatly, and add the butter and cream (pour the cream in slowly to avoid spatters). Return mixture to heat and continue boiling on medium-high heat until candy thermometer reads 240F, or until reduced to about 1.5 cups. Pour caramel greased measuring cup and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes, or up to an hour. Stir in the vanilla after 10 minutes.
Some notes on caramel:
Caramel is one of a family of substances sometimes referred to as French Chef Napalm. Under no circumstances should you taste it until it has cooled. Pre-completion sampling may cause nasty burns.
This makes more caramel then you need for the cookies.
Cookie, with caramel:
1 cup all-purpose flour.
1 cup quick oats
3/4 cup brown sugar (recipe calls for light, I prefer dark)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (if using salted butter, omit salt)
6 oz. chopped chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips.
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350, and grease the sides (but not the bottom) of a 9x13x2 inch pan.
Mix together flour, oats, sugar, baking soda and salt (recipe calls for beaters, I did just as well with a pastry smoosher thing). Add melted butter and stir. Pat mixture evenly into bottom of pan, and bake for 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate and nuts. Try and distribute them evenly, but you can pick these things up and move them, so it's not a crisis if you don't. Once nuts and chocolate are arranged to your satisfaction, drizzle with caramel. Proceed carefully, because (a) you can't redistribute caramel, and (b) if you overdo it on the caramel, the caramel will float the cookie base, and stick to the ungreased bottom of the pan, making it impossible to convince the pan to release the cookies. You will still be able to pry them up one at a time with a knife, and they'll still taste great, but if you want to ship them, or arrange them prettily on plates, it won't happen. You probably need about a cup of caramel on the cookies, all told. I haven't got this right yet.
Return the cookies to the oven for 20 more minutes. Remove. Place pan on wire rack to cool completely.
Once cookies are cool, loosen edge from pan with a butter knife or metal spatula. Invert onto a plastic wrap covered cookie sheet. At this stage, in theory, the contents of the pan wind up upside down on a cookie sheet, you re-invert them onto a cutting surface and slice them up into neat little bars. This has never happened for me, but it's a nice theory and seems somewhat plausible. If you manage this, place the cookies on paper towels for 15 minutes to absorb excess butter.
Keep 3 weeks at room temperature, several months refrigerated. Should ship well.
...
Because of your warning, we used a piece of parchment on the bottom of the 9x13 pan. We also put it in the freezer after it had cooled sufficiently before trying to loosen the caramel and cut the bars. That worked very well. I have beautiful looking bars to give away with our holiday trays this year. The homemade caramel is a great recipe. We used the leftover to make turtles.
...
The caramel boiled down to almost exactly 1.5 cups. Making it was a lot easier than unpeeling several dozen Brachs caramels and then melting them. The suggestion to pre-grease the glass measuring cup was a good one. We used about 1 cup to make the bars, and the remaining half cup to make turtles. (Caramel over pecans or walnuts covered in chocolate.)
To spread the caramel, I used a wooden spoon and just spooned it out of the measuring cup, keeping it about half an inch from the edge of the pan.
ricevermicelli's here.
elflynn is visiting with Ellie and the kids suggested we make caramel apples. We didn't have caramel at home, so we planned to make it from scratch instead. Then I found out it needed cream and sent Jon to the store to buy some. In retrospect perhaps it would have been easier to just have him buy caramel ;-)--Beth
Ricevermicelli's Breakfast Bar Recipe, with helpful comments
Caramel:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup (note: I use cane syrup - Lyle's GOlden - which works great.)
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter (salted probably wouldn't kill things)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Grease a large (more than 2 cup) heatproof measuring cup, and keep it near the stove while you do this.
In a medium, non-stick saucepan, heat the sugar and syrup over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until boiling. Stop stirring, and continue boiling until the mixture is a deep amber color (270 F on a candy thermometer, but it comes out fine if you just eyeball it). Remove pan from heat immedeatly, and add the butter and cream (pour the cream in slowly to avoid spatters). Return mixture to heat and continue boiling on medium-high heat until candy thermometer reads 240F, or until reduced to about 1.5 cups. Pour caramel greased measuring cup and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes, or up to an hour. Stir in the vanilla after 10 minutes.
Some notes on caramel:
Caramel is one of a family of substances sometimes referred to as French Chef Napalm. Under no circumstances should you taste it until it has cooled. Pre-completion sampling may cause nasty burns.
This makes more caramel then you need for the cookies.
Cookie, with caramel:
1 cup all-purpose flour.
1 cup quick oats
3/4 cup brown sugar (recipe calls for light, I prefer dark)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (if using salted butter, omit salt)
6 oz. chopped chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips.
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350, and grease the sides (but not the bottom) of a 9x13x2 inch pan.
Mix together flour, oats, sugar, baking soda and salt (recipe calls for beaters, I did just as well with a pastry smoosher thing). Add melted butter and stir. Pat mixture evenly into bottom of pan, and bake for 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate and nuts. Try and distribute them evenly, but you can pick these things up and move them, so it's not a crisis if you don't. Once nuts and chocolate are arranged to your satisfaction, drizzle with caramel. Proceed carefully, because (a) you can't redistribute caramel, and (b) if you overdo it on the caramel, the caramel will float the cookie base, and stick to the ungreased bottom of the pan, making it impossible to convince the pan to release the cookies. You will still be able to pry them up one at a time with a knife, and they'll still taste great, but if you want to ship them, or arrange them prettily on plates, it won't happen. You probably need about a cup of caramel on the cookies, all told. I haven't got this right yet.
Return the cookies to the oven for 20 more minutes. Remove. Place pan on wire rack to cool completely.
Once cookies are cool, loosen edge from pan with a butter knife or metal spatula. Invert onto a plastic wrap covered cookie sheet. At this stage, in theory, the contents of the pan wind up upside down on a cookie sheet, you re-invert them onto a cutting surface and slice them up into neat little bars. This has never happened for me, but it's a nice theory and seems somewhat plausible. If you manage this, place the cookies on paper towels for 15 minutes to absorb excess butter.
Keep 3 weeks at room temperature, several months refrigerated. Should ship well.
...
Because of your warning, we used a piece of parchment on the bottom of the 9x13 pan. We also put it in the freezer after it had cooled sufficiently before trying to loosen the caramel and cut the bars. That worked very well. I have beautiful looking bars to give away with our holiday trays this year. The homemade caramel is a great recipe. We used the leftover to make turtles.
...
The caramel boiled down to almost exactly 1.5 cups. Making it was a lot easier than unpeeling several dozen Brachs caramels and then melting them. The suggestion to pre-grease the glass measuring cup was a good one. We used about 1 cup to make the bars, and the remaining half cup to make turtles. (Caramel over pecans or walnuts covered in chocolate.)
To spread the caramel, I used a wooden spoon and just spooned it out of the measuring cup, keeping it about half an inch from the edge of the pan.
