Bake 52 Rewind, Week 5: 7 Layer Bars

I had some time this afternoon so I decided to make one of the dishes that my Bake 52 baking group did before I joined. Since I only had a couple of hours and I have a terrible time with dough rising as quickly as I expect I decided to do a dessert recipe.

After confirming that I had all the ingredients I got started.

Several of the ingredients had to be prepped before I could use them. When I don't go through and prep all the ingredients as required by the recipe first I get in trouble with the timing of the recipe. Not a big deal with this recipe but I figure I better get in the habit for the cake and bread recipes where it does matter.

So I broke up the graham crackers, melted the butter, chopped the milk chocolate (I used Hersey Bars - 5 and a quarter of them!), toasted the pecans and the coconut. While the coconut was toasting I started putting together the crust (layer 1).

Ground chocolate covered toffee bits...

The toffee & graham crackers ground up...

The toffee, graham crackers and melted butter...

It pressed into the pan really easily.

I had taken the time to form an aluminum sling for the pan like the recipe indicated. I ended up with some space at the corners but the pictures in the cookbook showed something similar so I didn't worry about it. I should have just followed my instincts and covered the pan with aluminum foil in one piece or even better made sure there were no gaps between the to pieces. But more on that later...

Once it had cooked for 10 minutes I scattered the chopped chocolate across the top of the crust (layer 2).

The recipe directed me to "let sit until the chocolate is softened but not melted, about 5 minutes." But my chocolate had been sitting in my 80 degree house. It was soft when I chopped it. When it hit the crust it started melting immediately. So I just spread it around.

Next came the rice crispies (layer 3).

Next the pecans (layer 4). I love pecans. I think they are my favorite nut...

Next the chocolate chips (layer 5).

Next the coconut (layer 6). I really don't like coconut. Plus I didn't have any sweetened coconut, only unsweetened coconut. I don't think that made a difference. it's not the taste or the sweetness of it. It's the texture. It tastes like straw to me.

The last layer was sweetened condensed milk with vanilla (layer 7). It took a bit of work to get the vanilla blended.

It just sat on the top when I poured it in. Plus I had used a bowl that was just large enough to fit everything so I couldn't mix it very hard without making a mess - which I did a couple of times.

All ready to go in the oven...

I baked it 25 minutes rotating after 13 minutes. I looked in the window while it was baking and saw that I was getting bubbles around the edges but didn't think it was a big deal. But once it came out of the oven I saw that it had given me a weird texture, and darkened more than the rest of the dish.

Once it had cooled for two hours I tried to pull it out of the pan using the sling. This is when I realized I'd made a mistake with having a gap in my sling.

The aluminum just tore. The sweetened condensed milk had leaked through the gap and essentially baked the aluminum into the bars. Yuck!

My first piece didn't come out well at all.

The alumimum foil was all smashed up in the bar. I just threw that away. I've bitten into aluminum foil before. Not an experience I wanted to repeat.

My second piece wasn't much better.  Although there wasn't any Aluminum foil embedded in it.

Finally the third piece was perfect.

Unfortunately the coconut was much more prominant in the bar than I'd hoped. With as much chocolate and other yummy stuff I hoped I'd like them better. Although that didn't stop me from eating the whole piece. I just tried to scrape the coconut & sweetened condensed milk layer off. The rest of it was yummy. I especially liked the crust. I'll have to figure out something to make with the crust. Maybe I could do my own version and substitute the coconut with something else. Any suggestions??