{  Dining Out  }          {  Ingredients  }          {  Recipes  }          {  Blast from the Past  }            

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Blast from the Past: Toffee Bars

Holidays with gram meant cookies - a decorative tin filled with an array of homemade cookies. My favorite was always the toffee bars. The recipe remained a secret until I got my first place.

When I moved into my first apartment, my grandparents gifted me a 9-Speed Osterizer Blender (Model 647-04, Made in the U.S.A.). Along with this blender, purchased January 27, 1971 (almost as old as me!) came a cookbook: Osterizer Blender Spin Cookery Cookbook. In that booklet, tucked between pages 28 and 29, was a note from my gram, revealing her secret toffee bar recipe.

Ingredients (makes about 36 bars)

  • 2 cups Sifted Flour
  • 1 Egg Yolk
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 1 cup Butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup Brown Sugar
  • 1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bits
  • 1 cup Pecans

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease a 9'x13" pan.
  3. Sift flour into mixing bowl.
  4. Put Egg Yolk, Vanilla, Butter, and Brown Sugar into OSTERIZER container, cover, and process at BLEND until smooth. Use a rubber spatula to aid in processing. Add to flour and mix well.
  5. Spread in prepared pan and bake 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle chocolate bits over the top, return to the oven for a few seconds to melt chocolate.
  6. When chocolate bits have melted, remove from oven and spread chocolate evenly over the cookies.
  7. Put half the nuts into MINI-BLEND container and process 2 cycles at GRATE. Sprinkle over chocolate. Repeat with remaining nuts.
  8. Cut into bars while warm. Cool in pan.
As soon as Passover is over, I'll whip up a batch of Eden-friendly (dairy and refined-sugar free) toffee bars for you. Oh, in case you're curious, I still have that Osterizer.

2 comments:

  1. lol it looks soooo yummy!! are you sure you can give it away!!
    Toffee bars are my favorites too! But I'm scared to cook sugar that hot. I'm working up to it. I HAVE a candy thermometre.

    This recipe helps me avoid that fearful action! Thanks for sharing!
    :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a hard time bringing myself to making candy, even though I have a candy thermometer as well. I can't have too much refined sugar so I'm typically substituting maple sugar crystals and am unsure how hot that can get. With this recipe the sugar is in a batter so there's less risk of the sugar burning.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...