5-6 people bring treats to share, and this week it was my turn. So on Saturday I decided to do some baking. I needed to bring about 3 dozen treats, so first I picked out a new recipe that I saw in the August Better Homes and Gardens magazine called Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Bars. Then I picked out a recipe for Pumpkin Pie Squares that I'd already made once with my daughter, Carrie. Finally, I picked out a recipe I've been wanting to make for a couple of months: Doughnut Hole Pops.
I shopped for the ingredients for these recipes, and after supper I began... I made the pumpkin pie squares. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of those but you can click on the name above and see the recipe.
Then I began making the strawberry bars. They turned out to be rather time consuming. I had to bake four 8 inch square "shortbread cookies." Using parchment paper made taking them out of the pan really easy. While they were baking I made the strawberry filling, which needed to chill for and hour and a half.
Finally it was time to assemble the bars. I had left the 4th cookie in the pan. I spread some of the strawberry filling on it and added another cookie.
The next layer was whipping cream and fresh strawberries. I used Cool Whip.
Then another cookie on top of that, topped with more strawberry filling.
I put the last cookie on the very top, and put it in the refrigerator to chill overnight.
The next morning, before leaving for church, I tried cutting the bars into squares. That was when I really ran into trouble. The cookie layers were so dense that they were hard to cut. Plus, they would slide around on the strawberry filling. I finally got them cut and decorated each square with a dollop of cream and some more fresh strawberries.
These bars would be wonderful for a special dessert after a dinner party, or for afternoon "tea" - when you could serve them on individual plates, but they were not perfect for transporting to church. They did taste good - but next time I'd use less sugar in the filling.
After putting the strawberry bars in the refrigerator I turned to making the doughnut hole pops - and they were a flop!
I started with store-bought holes, which ended up being stale. I couldn't find the lollipop sticks that the recipe called for, so I tried using straws. The straws worked okay but were not super sturdy. I followed the directions and dipped the straw into melted almond bark before pushing it into the doughnut hole.
Then the pan went in the freezer for a half hour. They didn't look too bad at this point.
So I melted some more almond bark and tried dipping one. Only problem was, where to put it until the coating hardened? If I set it down, it got flat on one side and no longer looked like a lollipop. The coating got too thick, and the straw wouldn't support it anymore. We didn't have any Styrofoam or I would have tried sticking the straw into it. At this point I got frustrated, and just threw them all away.
What new recipe have you tried lately? Have you ever thrown anything away?
1 comment:
The strawberry bars look yummy!
I recently threw away an entire pan of bars - they were supposed to be like oatmeal bars with chocolate chips and condensed milk, but the oatmeat crust never cooked right, and they were hard as a rock!
I literally lifted out the whole 9x13 and threw them into the trash. Yuck.
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