Easy-Peasy Cookie Bars Recipe

Tomorrow is General Conference.  That means we’re having a spiritual feast this weekend.

And while we’re at it with the spiritual nourishment, we need to have some delicious temporal nourishment as well.

We’ll have all the usual healthy finger foods.  Veggies and dip, some crackers and cheese, fresh fruit, maybe even some popcorn (especially now that they’ve decided it’s at least as healthy as fruits and vegetables).

But we need dessert, too.

So today you’re getting a two-fer.  Two recipes in one post.  They are actually variations on a theme.  I found a cookie bar recipe, but they just didn’t do it for me, so I tweaked the recipe base and tweaked the toppings (ok, I changed them a lot) and then I liked it better.

In fact, I liked it so much AND they were so easy that I started thinking up different combinations that I could use to make this quick and easy dessert treat.

First up, we have Pecan Pie Bars.  I like Pecan Pie, but it’s a little too gooey and syrupy for me.  Just too much corn syrup, I suppose.  But these delicious little treats have all the flavor of Pecan Pie Bars, but without the gooey-ness, the work or the mess.

 

Pecan Pie Bars

1  box yellow cake mix with pudding

1/3 cup melted butter

2 eggs

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped pecans

½ jar caramel ice cream topping (I used a 16 oz. jar, but a 12-oz jar would work just as well)

½ cup flour
Mix together cake mix, butter, and 1 egg. Pat into a greased 13 x 9-inch cake pan and set aside.

Mix the condensed milk, 1 egg and vanilla extract together.  In a separate bowl combine the caramel syrup and flour.  Blend well.  Mix with the condensed milk mixture and stir in the pecans.  Pour over crust and bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.

Then, just because the Pecan Pie Bars were so good, I thought about German Chocolate Cake bars.  I love German Chocolate Cake–it’s actually the only chocolate cake I like–I’m still not a chocolate lover), but it’s so much work and all those eggs and all that butter and the sour cream and all those calories and all that cholesterol.

These bars are a great alternative.  Just a little bite of wonderful German Chocolate Cake with not nearly so much butter or so many eggs.  And no, I have no idea what the calorie count is and I really don’t want to know.  It’s dessert.

 

German Chocolate Bars

1 box German Chocolate Cake mix with pudding (yes, you can use regular chocolate cake mix, but then they won’t be German Chocolate bars, wil they?)
1/3 cup melted butter

2 eggs

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup shredded/flaked coconut

½ jar caramel ice cream topping (I used a 16 oz. jar, but a 12-oz jar would work just as well)

½ cup flour

 

Mix together cake mix, butter, and 1 egg. Pat into a greased 13 x 9-inch cake pan and set aside.

Mix the condensed milk, 1 egg and vanilla extract together.  In a separate bowl combine the caramel syrup and flour.  Blend well.  Mix with the condensed milk mixture and stir in the pecans and coconut.  Pour over crust and bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.

_________________________________________________________________

I’m still working on a few other variations of my cookie bars recipe.  I’ll have to get back to you on the results.  Pineapple not-so-upside-down cake bars, anyone?

What’s your favorite General Conference treat?