Peach Crumb Bars

Peach-based recipes are so appropriate for this blog, and this one is a keeper. I've had it in my "Make This!" file for some time, and the time was right. Brown Eyed Baker adapted this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and Allrecipes.com. The only thing I added was vanilla, and I love to enhance peaches with vanilla.

I only had a small taste, since I was giving them away, but it was enough to tell me that these bars are rich and delicious with buttery crumbs above and below the jam-like peach filling, and I will make them again. I think cherry filling will be my next version!

Peach Crumb Bars
from the blog of Brown Eyed Baker
Makes 24 bars

3 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold
1 egg, lightly beaten

5 cups (about 7 peaches) peeled and diced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare 9×13-inch baking pan with baking spray or shortening.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter with pastry blender; add egg and continue cutting until dough is crumbly. Pat half of dough into prepared pan. Place pan and remainder of dough in refrigerator while preparing filling.

Place peaches in large bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice; add vanilla and mix gently. In separate bowl whisk together flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour over the peaches and mix gently.

Spread peach mixture evenly over crust. Crumble remaining dough over peach layer.

Bake 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

I linked up to Roz's Fresh Food Friday.


AND

A Well Seasoned Life's Sweet Indulgences Sunday

The Toffee Bar Search Is Over!

The search is over for the elusive toffee bars of my husband's youth. After trying several excellent recipes and having him say, "These are good but not THE ones", I finally came across his Mom's recipe in a cookbook published by our high school band in the 1960s.

His remembrance of the recipe was that it was topped with chocolate, which is not included in the original recipe. When I asked him if the chocolate topping was a variation, he said it was his contribution to the recipe - lol!

His Mom's recipe is titled "Pecan Crisps" and no chocolate is necessary for these softly crunchy, praline-ish bars. The toffee-like consistency is achieved by adding no leavening and spreading the batter into a large pan. And even though there is a teaspoon of cinnamon, the bars do not taste spicy.

I am so excited to find this recipe and spent the morning thumbing through this and other old cookbooks from my hometown. With all my love of new cookbooks and bookmarking scores of recipes on the internet, my favorites are still from my old, shabby, full-of-memories community cookbooks and those hand-written recipes lovingly shared on recipe cards, notebook paper, or any scrap of paper the writer found convenient.

Pecan Crisps
From my Mother-in-Law

1 cup soft butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, separated
2 cups sifted flour
½ teaspoon salt (I left this out because I used salted butter)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugar until light. Beat in vanilla and egg yolk. Add sifted dry ingredients and 1/2 cup of the pecans. Mix well. Press into greased 15 X 10 X 1 pan and brush top with slightly beaten egg white. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup pecans. Bake in moderate oven (350) about 25 minutes. While warm, cut into 50 bars and remove at once to rack to cool. (I cut mine into larger bars.)

The Elusive Toffee Bar

When my husband was a teen, his Mom used to make a toffee bar that he loved. His description of it indicates that it had a sweet, shortbread-type base, a layer of melted chocolate chips, and chopped pecans on top. Yeas ago I asked his Mom for the recipe, and sadly, she could not remember it. Since then I have tried various recipes in hopes that I would find the "right" one.

This recipe from the Joy of Baking website is the latest, but not the last, recipe I have tried. It made a beautiful bar and tasted great - toffee-ish, crunchy base with a yummy layer of chocolate and nuts - but after much discussion, nibbling, and compliments, hubby decided it was still not the elusive recipe.

Toffee Bars
Adapted from Joy of Baking

1/2 cup salted butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour

Topping:
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup roasted pecans, chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line bottom of 8 inch baking pan with parchment.

Melt butter in medium sized saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and vanilla extract. Add salt and flour and mix just until incorporated. Spread shortbread evenly on bottom of prepared pan and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes or until shortbread is golden brown with well browned edges.

Remove from oven and immediately scatter chocolate chips over hot shortbread. Return to oven for a minute or two or just until chocolate softens. Remove from oven and, with offset spatula or back of spoon, evenly spread chocolate. Sprinkle chopped pecans over chocolate, then press them lightly into chocolate. Cool on wire rack.

Makes about 16 squares.

In spite of the use of elastic waisted pants that my experiments demand, I have my sights on yet another recipe, this time from the Salad in a Jar blog. It looks like "the one".