Lynn's Kitchen Adventures » Cookie Bars

Chocolate Rice Krispy Treats

Lynn — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:30:14 +0000

My kids love rice krispy type treats. Well okay, my husband and I love them too.

However, I like my rice krispy treats doctored up a little. Plain ones are good, but fancy rice krispy treats are even better.

Today’s treats are chocolate rice krispy treats. Now, most of the time people just buy chocolate rice krispies or another type of chocolate cereal to make them. I have made them that way, but this recipe today is my favorite way to make chocolate rice crispy treats.

What do I do to make these special? I add cocoa, and not only do I add cocoa, I add chocolate chips that melt into the marshmallows. The combination of the cocoa and chocolate chips makes for the perfect amount of chocolate.

These are really good!

Chocolate Rice Krispy Treats

6 tablespoons butter

1 (10 ½ ounce) bag of mini marshmallows

¼ cup cocoa

8 cups of rice krispy cereal (I used the gluten free kind)

½ cup chocolate chips

In a large pan melt butter, marshmallow, and cocoa over medium heat, stirring constantly until melted.

Remove from heat and add cereal. Stir until well combined.

Stir in chocolate chips until melted.

Press into a greased 9×13 inch pan.

Let sit for several hours, and then cut into bars. These are not quite as firm as regular rice crispy treats. I put them in the refrigerator to help them firm up.

Enjoy!

Subscribe and get posts delivered to your inbox.

Follow me on Twitter.

Rice Crispy Type Treats

Lynn — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:50:08 +0000

My kids love rice crispy treats and so do I. They are so easy to put together when we need a quick snack or dessert.

Did you know that you can make rice crispy type treats out of just about any type of cereal? It is a great way to use up cereal that you have bought on sale or maybe cereal that your family did not like very much or that they are tired of.

Over the years I have used fruit loops, golden grahams, honey bunches of oats, captain crunch, and many others. I recently started doing this with gluten free cereals like Chex and that also works well.

I just follow the basic directions for making the treats and use whatever cereal that I have.

What is your favorite cereal to use for these rice crispy type treats?

Rice Crispy Treats

3 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 package (10 oz., about 40) regular marshmallows or 4 cups miniature marshmallows

6 cups rice krispies or other cereal

In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.

Add rice krispies cereal. Stir until well coated.

Using buttered spatula or wax paper evenly press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cool. Cut into 2-inch squares. Best if served the same day.

For a fun and unique rice crispy treat you should try Amy’s Rice Crispy Roll and Jen’s version of rice crispy treats. They are both fun versions of a classic treat.

Subscribe and get posts delivered to your inbox.

Follow me on Twitter.

Magic Cake Bars

Lynn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:43:51 +0000

This recipe is so good and so easy. It is similar to the magic cookie bars or seven layer bars that many of us have made for years, but this version uses a cake mix for the base. I made this for our last staff lunch and everyone loved them.

This is a great dessert to make when you are in a hurry. This is also one of those desserts that I love because I usually have all the ingredients in my pantry.

You can change this up a little by using different chips or leaving out the coconut or nuts. You really just follow the basic idea of it. I think my family actually likes this version better than the one with graham cracker crumbs that I make.

Magic Cake Bars

1 package of devils food cake mix

1/2 cup butter (cut into small chunks)

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

1 can (14 ounce) sweetened condensed milk

Place cake mix in a bowl and cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Press into a 15×10 jelly roll type pan. Sprinkle the chips, coconut, and nuts on top. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly on top. Bake at 350 for 23-25 minutes. Cool for at least 30 minutes and cut into bars.

For more recipes and ideas see Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also linked to Cook It Thursday.

Subscribe and get posts delivered to your inbox.

Follow me on Twitter.

No Bake Cookie Bars

Lynn — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:42:19 +0000

It is August in Oklahoma, which means it is hot outside. The kind of heat where I dread turning on the oven because it heats up the house so much. I have been trying to come up with some easy, no bake, summertime desserts that I can make without using my oven.

This is one I came up with based on my no bake cookies. It is the same basic recipe, I just tweaked it a little bit. I think it is even better this way. My family loved them. I loved them not only because they were good, but because they were quick and easy. Plus, they are a frugal dessert to make and I don’t have to use my oven. I also usually have all these ingredients in my pantry, so these are easy to make any time I need a quick dessert.

No Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
½ cup milk
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups instant quick oatmeal
⅔ cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips

Bring first four ingredients to a boil and cook 1 minute.
Add vanilla, oatmeal, and peanut butter and stir until combined. Then stir in chocolate chips.
Spread into a jelly roll/bar pan. Refrigerate until firm. Cut into squares.

For more frugal ideas and recipes see Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challenge.

Coconut Bars

Lynn — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Warning this recipe contains coconut! That is what I have to tell my daughter anytime a dessert has coconut in it. She hates coconut and does not like being surprised by it when she takes a bite. And it is not just a texture thing with her, she does not like anything even coconut flavored.

I on the other hand love coconut. It has so much flavor. It is so good. I can eat a handful of it straight from the bag. Oh, it is so good!

This recipe came from my mom. She made this all the time when we were growing up. This recipe reminds me so much of my childhood. She made these a lot because they were easy, frugal, and really good. The whole family enjoyed these bars.

This is a basic old fashioned, simple recipe. No frills or fancy ingredients. This dessert can be made with simple pantry ingredients. I love recipes like that, don’t you?

Now I am curious to know how many of you are coconut haters? Or are you like me and love it?

Coconut Bars

½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups coconut

This recipe is best made by hand. Stir with a wooden spoon. Do not use a mixer.

Melt butter. Add sugars and cream together. Add remaining ingredients and stir until blended. Pour into greased 9×13 pan and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Cool and cut into bars and enjoy.

For more frugal ideas see Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challenge.

Cooking With Kids – Magic Cookie Bars

Lynn — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Last week I posted about cooking with kids. There was quite a bit of interest in the subject, so I am going to start a series about cooking with kids. I hope to post weekly, on Wednesday, on the subject. I hope those of you with kids can get some tips and ideas. And for those of you without kids or kids that are grown up, I hope you still enjoy the recipes.

I will start by saying that today’s recipe is not healthy. It is actually quite unhealthy, but it is so good and so easy to make. My kids made it for me for my birthday last month. Well, actually it was a week late because they were all sick on my birthday. But it was for my birthday.

This recipe or versions of this recipe have been around for a while. I am sure many of you have seen it or made it before. But I wanted to remind you of it and let you know how great of a recipe it is for kids to make on their own. In fact my sisters made this all the time when they were learning how to cook. So my family has been making them for years. My kids thought this was so fun to make. They all worked on it together scattering the ingredients around. This is one of those recipes that is pretty hard to mess up.

They are Magic Cookie Bars or Seven Layer Bars. I think the original recipe came from Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk, but I could be wrong. You can change up the recipe by using different chips such as white chocolate or dark chocolate. Just use the basic recipe and change it to your tastes.

There are several different ways to make these. I have tried several. I think it works best to pour the sweetened condensed milk over the crust then layer the ingredients. This makes for a prettier bar that is easier to cut.

This recipe is so simple kids can do it from start to finish. My kids are 6, 8, and 11 and they made them just fine.

Seven Layer Bars/Magic Bars

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
1 (14-ounce) can Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
2 cups (12 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350. In small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter; mix well. Press crumb mixture firmly on bottom of 13X9-inch baking pan.
Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture. Layer evenly with remaining ingredients; press down firmly with fork.
Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Cut into bars or diamonds. Store leftovers covered at room temperature.

This recipe and cooking with kids works for me.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Lynn — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:36:00 +0000

I saw this recipe several months ago on the Everyday Baking website. I knew right away this was one that I wanted to try for our Christmas party. I made it for Thanksgiving to make sure that we like it and we did. Everyone thought that is was great and it looks really nice. I like it because you can cut the pieces as big or small as you need.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

For the Crust:
20 chocolate wafer cookies, (half a 9-ounce package) I could not find the chocolate wafers so I used chocolate graham crackers
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the Filling:
2 packages bar cream cheese, (8 ounces each)
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin puree
3 large eggs
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice ( I used just cinnamon)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil, leaving an overhang on all sides. Set aside. If you are going to serve these on a platter do this step. It makes them much prettier when you cut them.

In a food processor, blend cookies with sugar until finely ground (you should have about 1 cup crumbs); add butter, and pulse until moistened. (or do this by hand)
Transfer crumb mixture to prepared pan, and press gently into bottom. Bake until slightly firm, 12 to 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Place cream cheese in food processor or mixer and blend until smooth. Add sugar, pumpkin puree, eggs, flour, pumpkin-pie spice, and salt; process until combined. Set aside.
Place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl; microwave in 30-second increments, stirring between each, until melted. Add 1 cup pumpkin mixture; stir to combine. Set aside.
Pour remaining pumpkin mixture into prepared pan. Drop dollops of chocolate mixture onto pumpkin mixture; swirl. Bake until cheesecake is set but jiggles slightly when gently shaken, 40 to 45 minutes.
Cool in pan. Cover; chill until firm, at least 2 hours (and up to 2 days). Using overhang, transfer cake to work surface. With a knife dipped in water, cut into 16 squares. Serve.

Skillet Baked Chocolate Cookie

Lynn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:29:00 +0000

I love chocolate and I love chocolate chip cookies. I like to make regular cookies but I don’t always have the time it takes to make cookies. I like the idea of a bar or pan style cookie to save time.

I have tried several times over the years to make a bar or round pan cookie. I have tried it by just using my regular cookie recipes. They have been good but never great. The texture was just not quite what I thought it should be.

I recently found a Martha Stewart cookbook on PaperBackSwap. I was thrilled to find it since I love cookbooks. It was Martha Stewart Living Annual Recipes for 2003. It has a lot of great recipes in it. Many of the recipes are for things that I would not make but many of the recipes look are very good.

One of the recipes that caught my attention was for a Skillet Baked Chocolate Cookie. It looked really good. I thought it might be the type of bar cookie that I had been looking for. The proportions of flour to butter to sugar were different than others I had tried. And leave it to Martha and her team of cooks to come up with a recipe with the correct proportions. Last weekend I decided to give this recipe a try.

This recipe is so good. It is the perfect combination of crunchiness on the outside and soft and chewy center. This is so good served with vanilla ice cream.

Skillet Chocolate Cookie

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups mixed milk- and semisweet chocolate chips
vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars until mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla; mix until they are fully incorporated. Add flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
Transfer dough to a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, and press to flatten, covering bottom of pan. Bake until edges are brown and top is golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Don’t over bake; it will continue to cook a few minutes out of the oven. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, 15 to 20 minutes. Cut into 8 wedges. Serve warm; top each wedge with a scoop of ice cream

The original recipe said to bake 40 – 45 minutes. I think this is too long. The time in my oven is 25-30 minutes.

For more recipes see Tempt Your Tummy Tuesday.

Lime Bars

Lynn — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:27:00 +0000

I have been making my mom’s lemon bars for a long time. We really like the recipe. Once in a while though, I like to change it up by using lime instead of lemon. It gives it a little different flavor but is still an easy dessert to make. Two of my kids like the lime version even better than the lemon.

I like to make lemon and lime bars because I usually have everything I need to make them. If I am going to take the lime version somewhere or serve to company I add a little green food coloring. The green coloring just lets everyone know that they are lime. If you want to make them lemon just substitute lemon juice for the lime juice.

Lime Bars

Crust:
1 cup butter
½ cup powdered sugar
2 cups flour

Mix powdered sugar and flour. Cut in butter. Press into 9×13 pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.

Filling:
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons lime juice
4 eggs

Beat together until well mixed. Pour over warm crust. Return to oven and bake for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut when they are still slightly warm. Enjoy!

Lemon Bars

Lynn — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:54:00 +0000

This recipe is one my mom has been making for years. It was one of my favorite deserts growing up. I love lemon and these have a great lemon taste.

It is a quick, easy, and inexpensive desert. I usually have everything on hand to make them. I think they are also a great summertime dessert because they are not heavy.

I took them to a church dinner on Sunday and they were a hit.

Lemon Bars

Crust:

1 cup butter

½ cup powdered sugar

2 cups flour
Mix powdered sugar and flour. Cut in butter. Press into 9×13 pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.

Filling:

2 cups sugar

4 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons lemon juice

4 eggs

Beat together until well mixed. Pour over warm crust. Return to oven and bake for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut when they are still slightly warm.

Subscribe and get posts delivered to your inbox.

Follow me on Twitter.