Sugar Cookie Bars

Big news, the girls track team won conference championships yesterday! It was extremely rainy and gross out yesterday, but they ran/jumped/threw through it and came out with a victory. Standing to wait for the places to be called, our team thought we had come in second until another team was called for second place, and we finally figured out we had come in first. Though, because of my injury, I haven't been able to run this season, I still love coming to the meets to cheer all my teammates on and I was so proud of how they all preformed yesterday that I knew I needed to make them something to munch on while we celebrated the win at practice the next day.

I wanted to make something easy to serve and transport (as I knew we would be eating it out on the track) so I decided to turn the popular sugar cookie into a bar form, and decorate them using our team colors of blue and gold!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Bars-

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cups sugar


2 eggs


1 teaspoons vanilla extract


2 1/2 cups flour


1/2 teaspoon salt


1/4 teaspoons baking soda

 

Icing-


1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


Dash of salt

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

Food coloring

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 F and grease a 13 x 9 inch pan.

To make the bars, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and then add in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and in a separate bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add this dry mixture into the butter and sugar mixture. Spread the dough evenly into your prepared baking pan(s). You may want to use your hands to pat it down more easily.

Place the bars in the oven for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden on the edges.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat together the butter, vanilla, and salt to create the frosting. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, and then add in drops of food coloring until the desired color is acquired.

Remove from the bars from the oven and let cool before icing.

After icing, you may decorate with sprinkles or other toppers.

Refrigerate the bars before cutting to make for easier slicing.

These bars would be great to make and have people decorate. You could either ice them before and buy a variety of candies and sprinkles for people to create their own little treats, or you could even divide the icing into several parts, coloring each differently so people may also ice their own bars as well (though the icing will not be cooled and hardened as well, it will still taste yummy!)

Dulce De-Lish Bars

I bake a lot for my friend but when he brings the leftovers home, his younger sister never can have them because she’s allergic to peanuts. Even though I make a lot of things without peanuts, I found out that his sister can’t even eat toll house chocolate chips because they’re made in a factory that also processed peanut products.

So this time I decided to make something especially for Lindsey, and I checked all the labels to make sure it would be completely peanut free and yummy.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup package brown sugar

2 eggs

1½ teaspoons vanilla

1 (14-ounce) package caramels

½ cup evaporated milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a13x9-inch baking pan.

Stir flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl on the side and beat butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until nice and creamy. Add the eggs and the vanilla to the large bowl and beat again until smooth. Slowly stir in the flour mixture.

Spread one half to two thirds of the batter in the greased pan and bake for 7 to 8 minutes.

While the first layer is cooling, melt the caramels and evaporated milk in a nonstick saucepan over low heat, using a wooden spoon to periodically stir this dulce de leche mixture.

Pour the dulce over the first layer, and reserve about two tablespoons to drizzle over later.

Afterwards, drop spoonfuls of batter in top of the dulce de leche layer and use a rubber spatula to spread the batter evenly.

Place back in the oven and bake for an additional 25 minutes. Cool and then reheat the left over dulce de leche and drizzle it over the bars. Let the drizzle cool and then cut into bars.

Packaging them up.

These bars may not look perfect but they taste so good they’re dangerous. Don’t let yourself stay alone in the house with a batch of these, they will be gone by morning.