Chocolate Chunk Toffee Bars

Last Tuesday night I panicked. At the last minute, I remembered that I had committed to baking some kind of homemade treat for an occasion the next day, but I had completely forgotten about it! Oops. Luckily, the occasion didn't require anything fancy. If it had, I definitely think I would have been less likely to forget. Thankfully I remembered my obligation to make something, and thankfully it only took about 30 seconds for me to decide what to make. My chocolate chip graham cracker blondies are one of the simplest and fasted desserts to make, and the ingredients are ones that I always have on hand. So, I got to work making them! This time around though, I changed the recipe slightly (which is so easy to do and a great feature of this recipe!) to add chocolate chunks and toffee bits instead of the original chocolate chips and crushed graham crackers that I added when I first made these. Below are the ingredients I used this time around. Feel free to add different mix-ins to match your own personal preference!

Ingredients:

-2 sticks (16 Tbsp.) butter, melted

-2 cups brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)

-2 large eggs

-2 tsp. vanilla

-pinch salt

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. baking powder

-1 and 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chunks

-1 cup Heath English toffee bits

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and butter or spray a 13 x 9 pan. Mix the melted butter with brown sugar, and beat until smooth. Beat in eggs and then vanilla. Add the salt, and stir in the flour and baking powder. Mix in your additions (chocolate chunks, toffee bits). Pour into your prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the middle is set and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before cutting.

Now these first few pictures I took basically as soon as the bars were just cool enough to remove from the pan. So you can definitely tell how warm, ooey and gooey (i.e., slightly undercooked!!) these are. It's my own preference to undercook them a bit, but you can cook them a couple minutes longer if you'd like. The pictures toward the bottom (when the blondies are on the pink plate) are the next day. The gooey-ness goes away slightly, but they're still very soft and yummy. :)

Mmmmmm...

The next time you need a dessert in a hurry, I hightly recommend you keep these in mind. ;) As I mentioned, they are incredibly easy and are made with normal ingredients that most of us have in our kitchens at any time!

Browned Butter Toffee Blondies

Hi friends and happy weekend!! :)

Last Sunday afternoon I had the itch to bake...  I mean, I get that itch a lot ;-), but it had actually been a few days since I had baked, and I didn't actually have an occasion to bake for, so I had the luxury of baking just to bake! I love to bake no matter what, but it's often the occasion for which I'm baking that dictates what I make. Not this time. I got to make whatever I wanted! I was in the mood to make a dessert...brownies or bars of some sort (I didn't feel like doing drop cookies)...so I started to sift through (haha, no pun intended) several of my cookbooks. I read several recipes in my Martha Stewart Cookies book before deciding to try her browned butter toffee blondies. Yummm.

The browned butter in this recipe adds a really nice nutty flavor to these bars. I had never baked using the browned butter technique, so it was fun to try something new! Basically you just melt the butter on the stove and cook it for a while (I think I cooked mine for about 15 minutes) until it reaches a golden brown color and smells nice n' nutty. :) This recipe does have walnuts in it, and although I don't often bake with nuts, they were oh so appropriate for this tasty treat!!

The recipe for you!

-1 and 1/4 cups (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
-2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
-1 and 1/2 tsp. salt
-2 cups packed light brown sugar
-1/2 cup granulated sugar
-3 large eggs
-2 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 cup chopped walnuts (about 4 oz.)
-1 cup toffee bits (I actually used Heath bar milk chocolate toffee bits because that's what I had on hand)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking pan with parchment paper; butter and flour parchment. In a saucepan on the stove over medium heat, cook the butter until it turns golden brown; remove from heat, and let cool. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, combine the browned butter and both sugars; stir with a spoon or spatula until combined. With an electric mixer, add eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla, and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture, walnuts, and toffee bits, and mix until thoroughly combined. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake until a cake tester comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before turning out of pan onto a cutting board. Peer off parchment paper, and cut blondies into desired size.

The cookbook says the bars can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, but I still have a few more left that have been stored for 6 days, and they still taste great. :-D Most of these I shared earlier in the week with coworkers and neighbors. Everyone enjoyed them very much!! The toffee, nutty flavor of these bars really stands out. They're a really nice sweet treat that doesn't involve chocolate. Although I do love my chocolate, there are days when that's not what I'm craving. In those cases, bars like these are perfect. ;-)

Talk to you again soon!

Chocolate Graham Toffee Treats

Hello and a belated Merry Christmas to you!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. :) I know I did! Love love love my time with family.

I have a very simple and incredibly tasty treat for you here - chocolate graham toffee treats! These were one item that I gave to my coworkers this year in the Barbershop goodie bags they all received (the other two items were peanut butter fudge and cranberry white chocolate cinnamon chip bars - those blog posts will be in the near future ;-)). The chocolate graham toffee treats were a big hit!! They take no time at all really. If you need to make a sweet treat in a flash, I'd recommend that you try these! A warning for you though: they are a bit addicting...

The recipe I followed can be found here. And as always, pictures for you. :)

I'd definitely recommend lining the pan with foil - makes it so much easier!

Finely chopped pecans, thanks to my mini chopper!

Butter and sugar brought to a boil on the stove...

Pecans, being mixed in.

Put it in the oven!

When it comes out of the oven, sprinkle chocolate chips on top. The recipe says 1 to 2 cups. I've made this recipe twice now and only used 1 cup both times. I thought that was plenty!

Let the chips melt and then spread the chocolate evenly.

I decided to sprinkle some Heath Bar toffee bits on mine too. :-D

The second time I made them I also put white sprinkles on them for a "snowy, wintery" look.

Betcha can't eat just one! However, I challenge you to only have one. Everything in moderation. ;-) I have a lot of people ask me how I stay slim and eat all the things I cook and bake. Well, I have to attribute that to self-control and exercise! I typically only have a taste or two of the yummy treats I make, and I run and exercise often. That's my secret. :-D

See ya again soon!!

Holiday Candies

For the past few years now, I've been joining my coworker Marge, candy maker extraordinaire, in her annual "Willy Wonka" day, as I like to call it. Before I joined Marge in making the candy, I used to be a recipient of a box of beautiful homemade candies each year from her. Now, I help her make them and I give them out to my family and friends as a "from the heart" gift for the holidays. :)

Today we made all sorts of candies...chocolate covered oreos (plain and mint flavored!), chocolate covered toffee with almonds, chocolate covered caramels, chocolate covered creme-filled nutter butter squares (woah!), etc... Phew, that was a lot of chocolate covered items! There's also peppermint bark, plain milk, white, and dark chocolates in various shaped molds - and a few others. I can't remember them all! Marge makes several of the candy items ahead of time too. If she didn't, this would surely be a two day affair as opposed to just one 8 or 9 hour day! One item that I made from start to finish today was the toffee covered in chocolate and crushed almonds, pictured below.

Toffee is actually pretty easy to make even though it actually feels rather intimidating (at least I thought it did at first). I didn't take any pictures of the process today, but you can find out exactly out to make toffee here. You make the actual sticky toffee part only with sugar and butter - 1 cup of each. Easy! It's important to monitor it the whole time while on the stove though. If you let it cook just a tad too long, it's no good! I did that last year - oops. I learned my lesson last year, and it came out well this time around. :) Before the toffee hardens completely, it's important to score it so that it's easier to break into squares later on. Once I had the individual squares, I dipped each one in melted milk chocolate and then immediately sprinkled (liberally) crushed almonds on each one. Voila! Nothing to it.

I am sworn to secrecy and can't give out all the essential secrets to making delicious

homemade candies, unfortunately. But, I can show you a picture of what a finished box looks like... So pretty! If you're lucky enough, you may even get a box of your own someday. ;-)