Almost every day during school, Abigail has a window of time that I call Recess. It’s recess, because she has completed her independent school work, but she’s waiting for me to finish working with Zander before I turn my attention to her. On any given day, this amount of time can range from 20 minutes to a full hour, depending on how early she started her school work, and how much Zander and I have to do.
So the other day I suggested that she come up with a list of things that she would like to learn to do during that time. Whether that be crafting, cooking, building, working with fabric, etc. Her face lit up when I mentioned cooking, and after a careful going-through of several cookbooks, decided that the next day she’d like to work on her baking skills. I was all for that, my only requirement being that she try to find something that we had the ingredients on hand for. Other than that, the sky was the limit.
Her chosen book was a new copy of an old book. Best Loved Cooky Treasures by Betty Crocker is an interesting cookbook, that’s for sure. It’s chock of full of delightful cookies- and also a few rather interesting specimens from an era gone by. The recipe she chose was straightforward and simple, Chocolate Chip Bars. I had all the ingredients on hand, and let her loose with a few modifications.
The recipe called for shortening, we subbed in butter instead. Also instead of chocolate chips and nuts, Abigail chose to use a blend of milk and white chocolate chips. And as she was mixing it all up, we also added a splash of vanilla, because it just seemed like the right thing to do. I let her do everything by herself, and she did a fine job putting the bars together and in the oven.
We cooked them the full 35 minutes called for, but honestly did not even test them before taking them out of the oven. It was a difficult thing to wait for these bars to cool before we could sample them- they smelled so good!
Eventually we got to cut into them, and I’ll admit that I was surprised at how delicious they were. Rich and buttery, and full of a deep caramel flavor, these were some of the best blondies I’ve tasted. I figure the rich caramel flavors are from the butter and the fact that only brown sugar was used. Shortening may have changed the flavor profile completely, so I’m going to recommend going with the butter.
We’re going to do Baking and Cooking class more often.
Chocolate Chip Bars
1/3 cup shortening (we used butter) 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar 2 eggs 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate pieces 1/2 cup coarsely broken nuts splash of vanilla (our addition)Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9×9 square pan and set aside.
Mix shortening (or butter), sugar and eggs thoroughly.
Stir dry ingredients together and blend into the shortening mixture. Stir in chocolate pieces and nuts. Spread in greased pan.
Bake at 350º for 30 to 35 minutes. When almost cool cut into bars. Makes 16 bars.