This recipe comes out of a handwritten cookbook of my grandma’s recipes. I received a copy of her her favorite recipes including her Oatmeal Fudge Bars. I love this cookbook and everytime I make a recipe from it I picture my grandma in her kitchen (with two stoves/ovens) baking bread and goodies each day. I loved to help her and can’t wait until I have children and grandchildren to create memories with them and share my passion for cooking and baking.

These bars a cross between cake and a brownie. They are not as light and fluffy as cake but don’t have that true uber chocolate flavor like a brownie would (even cake-like brownies). I made these for movie night with some friends. I wanted something chocolately but not overly so or too rich. I also wanted something that we could eat with our hands and not need a bowl and fork/spoon. I had recently made cupcakes and was not in the mood to make them again. I wanted a bar recipe but after paging through my cookbooks I did not find one that jumped out at me. That is when I reached for my grandma’s cookbook and the title caught my eye. That was exactly what I was looking for!

These bars have a more dense texture than cake but in a good way.  I like the fact that they incorporate chocolate into the batter without it dominating the overall flavor of the bar. It is like a marbled cake but in bar form.  The batter was very thick and I had a difficult time ’swirling’ the two together. I swirled very little for fear of mixing the two batter together making the two distinct colors merge into a lightly colored cake bar.

These were eaten up by my friends in no time, even by the non-sweet eaters. I will admit that we did eat a few after the movie with a scoop of icecream,  hot fudge and toasted walnuts on top. I have to say that I loved the texture of these bars with the icecream and hot fudge better than a cookie.

I would make these again. Next time I might add mini chocolate chips or toasted walnuts (as called for in the recipe) to the batter. My swirling technique was not the best with these bars because the batter was thick. Next time I think I will swirl more than I did this time, for appearance sake. Either way, these are worth a try and are easy to modify to your family’s preferences (toasted nuts, M&M’s, chocolate chips, PB chips, toasted coconut etc.) These would even be good frosted!

I rate this recipe a 7.5

Swirled Cake Bars
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup shortening (or butter)(I used 1/2 cup shortening 1/4 cup butter)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup nuts (I omitted because I had none)
2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted (I used 1 oz semi-sweet and 1 oz bittersweet)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
Lightly spray and flour a 9×13 pan with PAM.
In a small bowl wisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In large mixing bowl cream the shortening and sugar. Add the vanilla and eggs. Beat only to combine. Mix in the flour mixture and beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.
Spoon half the batter into another bowl. Fold the 1/2 cup of nuts into the vanilla batter. Gently pour batter into prepared pan.
To the remaining batter fold in the melted chocolate until incorporated. Gently drop spoonfulls of the chocolate batter over the vanilla batter in the pan. Using a greased knife, cut through the two batter to create swirl patter. Top with remaining nuts.
Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Do not overbake.
*Mine baked in 24 minutes.

These bars are very good, messy, but good!
I got the recipe out of an old church cookbook and couldn’t wait to try them because they combine the goodness of a S’more: graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows in an ooey gooey bar. Another reason these bars caught my eye is that they do not require any bake time! Perfect for summer days when you don’t want to use your oven but still want a tastey sweet!

I would rate these bars a 7.5 (they lost .5 points for difficulty serving)

While I am a HUGE chocolate cake lover, my heart belongs to the Yellow Cake. I tried my hand at making one from scratch and was very pleased with the results. After searching through several cookbooks for a recipe that was worthy of sacraficing my Homemade Yellow Cake Virginity I decided I was more comfortable using a recipe already blogged about for my “first time”. I turned to Nic at bakingbites and found what I was looking for! I followed her recipe to a “T” with the exception of adding a drop of Yellow food coloring to bump up the Yellow in my Yellow Cake.

Take note, as she uses a unique mixing method (blends the butter with dry ingredients before adding the wet) which produces a cake that has the most tender crumb you have eaten. The cake baked up light, fluffy and oh so delicious. and nothing takes a Yellow Cake over-the-top better than Chocolate Frosting.

These cookies remind me of something Paula Dean would make (1 1/2 cups of butter!!!) Yowza! Also, these cookies use few ingredients (NO eggs needed!) and are a snap to whip up! The finished product is light and butter and slightly sweet. The texture of these cookies is not cake-like but somewhat “flakey”. They definately melt in your mouth! I think the mini-chips are perfect in this recipe (or omit all together). Regular size chips would overpower this little gem and I am not sure the cookie has the sturdiness to handle full size chocolate chips without crumbling. Plus, the minis are soooo cute!

Wow, August is almost over, I can NOT believe it! Pretty soon Christmas will be right around the corner.

Well, this weekend I baked up a tasty little cookie that reminds me of the Christmas cookies my mom always bakes. I didn’t take a picture but let me tell you these need to go in your holiday rotation! They are chocolatey, pepperminty, and oh so sweet (even if you have not been).

The real key here is a good quality cocoa powder. I LOVE Ghiradelli chocolate. I like Hershey’s cocoa as much as the next gal (HELLO Perfectly Chocolate Cake and Frosting) but these cookies really deserve some high quality cocoa.

These cookies are sweet (may be too sweet for some: (cough, chickens!! cough)) so rolling them in sugar before baking is optional. However, doing so will produce the most glorious sugar crusted, crackly topped chocolate peppermint piece of heaven you have ever had the pleasure to indulge in.

*Can be easily doubled, I got about 14 cookies, just enough to eat some a freeze some.

I rate this recipe a 7.5
Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup butter flavor Crisco
3/4 cups + 2 TBS sugar
1 egg, room temp
1/2 tsp peppermint extract (not oil)
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Ghiradelli cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup White chocolate chips
1/2 cup Andes Peppermint chips (the white and red ones) (NOT the regular green/chocolate Ande’s mints!!)
Sugar (for rolling dough balls)

Preheat oven to 350.Line baking sheet with Parchement paper.
In medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, soda, baking powder and salt. Set asideCream the butter and Crisco. Add the sugar and beat until blended. Add egg and peppermint extract, beat until well combined.

Fold in with a spatula the flour/cocoa mixture. Mix with a blender 10 seconds to combine. Fold in the white chocolate chips and Andes chips. Using a medium cookie scoop form dough into 1-inch balls. Roll each dough ball in a cup of sugar to lightly coat. Place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 9-10 minutes or until edges are firm and the center appears slighlty soft, don’t overbake. Cool on baking sheet 3-5 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool completely.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.