Anita Mae Draper
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Butterscotch Bars

12/17/2016

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I needed a pan of squares for the church Christmas Dinner and wanted to bring something festive, sweet, and full of flavour, so I chose a Christmas favourite, Butterscotch Bars. The recipe comes my well-used copy of Company's Coming: 150 Delicious Squares by Jean Pare. 

The actual name is Oh Henry Butterscotch, but without the chocolate nutty covering, it doesn't seem like the Oh Henry bars, so we always call them plain old Butterscotch Bars.

I double most recipes, which is why you see 2 pans in most photos. 
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Company's Coming: 150 Delicious Squares by Jean Pare
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Butterscotch Bars from Company's Coming: 150 Delicious Squares

Since parchment paper came on the scene for home bakers, I line everything with it as I hate ruining my pans with sharp knives and the parchment allows me to lift the food right out and then cut.

The recipe calls for graham crackers, and I used some for the bottom of a pan to show you how they fit, which isn't well. You have to break them.

Instead, I like using Christie's Toppables. They are a soft cracker without salted tops, and fit perfectly into a 9" square pan.

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Toppables Crackers by Christie
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Top pan lined with Toppables, bottom pan lined with Graham Crackers

Combine the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla in a large saucepan. 
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​Bring it to a boil, and then simmer for 5 mins. 

Remove from the heat. 

Add the graham cracker crumbs.
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Mix the graham crackers crumbs until it's all well combined - remember, this is OFF the heat now.
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Pour it carefully over the crackers in the pan(s).
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Add another layer of crackers on top.

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COOL!

I put my pans in the fridge because it is so much easier to ice when it's cooled.

A few hours later, I make my Icing:
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Butter Icing from Company's Coming: 150 Delicious Squares by Jean Pare

I use a flat, straight-edge spoon/spatula for easy spreading. 
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Because I wanted a festive look, I added Red and Green sprinkles while the icing was still soft.

In the following photo, the foreground shows the bars made with the Toppables, and the rest is from the pan with a graham cracker base. On the right of the image, you can see where I've turned one of each bar on an edge to show you the different undersides.

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Butterscotch Bars made with Toppables base foreground and front right. Rest all have graham cracker base.
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I brought one pan of Butterscotch Bars to the church, and the rest packed and ready for the freezer. 

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The image below shows the Oh Henry Butterscotch from Company's Coming: 150 Delicious Squares. Theirs are slightly higher. Mine would be higher if I used an 8" square pan instead of the 9", however, the icing would be thicker, too. 


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Page 17 - Company's Coming: 150 Delicious Squares by Jean Pare. Arrow shows the OH HENRY BUTTERSCOTCH

When my husband ate one of the Butterscotch Bars, I asked him what he thought. He said it tasted like caramel. I asked him if he thought it was sweet, and he said, "Oh, ya!"

Using an 8" pan then, would make it taste even sweeter, unless you didn't use all of the icing and saved it for something else. What a great idea!
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Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

2/29/2012

1 Comment

 

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

I made this cheesecake for our annual church Dessert Auction Fundraiser with all proceeds going to the youth group. It's very easy, but should be started the day before or early morning to allow for chilling time.

Although you can buy a crumb crust, this recipe from the Hershey's Chocolate Lover's Cookbook calls for a crust made with vanilla crumbs and cocoa. I take the Chocolate Festival Cheesecake, use chocolate crumbs, and call it a Triple Chocolate Cheesecake.
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Triple Chocolate Cheesecake with White Chocolate Butterflies (Quadruple chocolate?) Another (better) photo of the top is at the end of this post.

Chocolate Crumb Crust
1 ¼ cups (about 40 wafers)
1/3 cup         
1/3 cup
 ¼ cup (1/2 stick)
vanilla wafer crumbs*
powdered sugar, sifted
cocoa, sifted
butter or margarine, melted
Heat oven to 350°F.
 
In a small bowl, stir together vanilla* wafer crumbs, powdered sugar and cocoa. I used chocolate crumbs and 2 tbsps of cocoa.
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Chocolate crumbs, powdered sugar, and cocoa. (But I forgot to sift.)
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Mixed together
Stir in melted butter/margarine.
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Melted butter/margarine added.
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Melted butter/margarine brings it al together.
Although the cookbook doesn't call for this, I make a bottom out of parchment paper to slide the cheesecake off the pan. Very easy, and no one cutting the bottom of my springform pan.
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Draw on the outside of the pan, but cut an 1/8" inside to fit.
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My cutting skills aren't perfect, but it's good enough.
Press the crumb mixture onto bottom and ½ inch up the side of a 9-inch springform pan. I use a metal one-cup measuring cup. It's rounded nicely at the bottom edge and provides a nice tapered side. It also slides nicely with gentle finger pressure to make an even bottom.
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A one-cup measuring cup slides easily and leaves smooth surface.
Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool.

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

3 packages (8 oz each)
1  1/4 cups
1/4 cup
1/2 cup
2 teaspoons
2 tablespoons
3
cream cheese, softened (I used 2 regular & 1 Light)
sugar
cocoa
sour cream
vanilla extract
all-purpose flour
eggs
Heat oven to 450°F. In a large mixer bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, cocoa, sour cream and vanilla.
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Cream cheese, sugar, cocoa, sour cream and vanilla.
Beat on medium speed of electric mixer until smooth. Add flour and eggs. Beat well.
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Beaten and ready for pouring.
Pour into prepared Chocolate Crumb Crust.
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Oven ready.
Bake 10 minutes. Without opening oven, reduce temperature to 250°F.

Continue baking 30 minutes. (Don't open door, but if your oven has a light and you can see it, the cheesecake may not appear set in middle.)

Turn off oven. Leave cheesecake in oven 30 minutes without opening door. Remove from oven.

With knife, loosen cake from side of pan. Cool to room temperature. Remove side of pan.
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Out of oven, but still have to run dull knife around edge to loosen from side.
Refrigerate several hours or overnight. I did for one hour as I was pressed for time and knew it wouldn't be eaten until the next day.

Garnish* with chocolate curls or sliced fruit and whipped cream, if desired.
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*For garnish, I use chocloate dipping wafers (or Wilton candy melts).  Although I have a double boiler, I use a Corning bowl (the one with a wide handle/spout on one side and smaller on the other) or metal bowl over a pot of softly simmering water. Pour approx 1/2 cup chocolates wafers into the bowl and stir as it melts, ensuring you don't let any water or condensation mix in with your chocolate or it won't work/harden as well.

Once they are all melted, pour the milk chocolate into a 6" Wilton bottle made for this purpose, and squirt the chocolate in whatever design you wish. Sometimes I make flower or lattice designs. 

This year, I had one bowl of milk chocolate wafers melting beside a bowl of white chocolate wafers. I was trying to start with a milk chocolate free-hand and then have it end and the white begin in one continuous stream, like varigated yarn. It didn't work.

As you can see in the photo below - around the edge in the foreground - the brown color didn't end when the white started, but rather mixed together. I tried to work this lighter color around the edge to give the design a more even look (as if it was planned).

I then added more white chocolate to the bottle, squirted into the chocolate bowl until only white came out, then made my white chocolate butterflies on a sheet of parchment. As the butterflies harden, the parchment should be tucked into the middle groove of a cardboard egg carton*, but the dessert auction was quickly approaching and I ran to get dressed. By the time I got back to the kitchen, only the thickest butterfly was bendable. Usually I'd use only the best ones, but this time, they were all iffy. Still, I took the best and left the rest.
* Let me know if you want photos of this design idea.
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Triple Chocolate Cheesecake with White Chocolate Butterflies (Quadruple chocolate?)
Cover. Refrigerate leftover cheesecake.

Yield 10 to 12 servings.


Because I was taking this to sell, I slid the cheesecake off the pan bottom and onto this glass cake stand (the parchment sticks to the bottom of the cake). In other years, I found that if I sell the stand with the cheesecake, I can put a minimum starting bid and sell it for more. This Anchor glass cake/trifle stand/punch bowl combo usually sells at Walmart for $10, but this year, they had them on sale for $5. That's a small price when my cheesecakes usually go for $40 to $100 at the dessert auction. (Last year I brought 3 different cheesecakes and since there were more to go around, one sold for only $40. This year, I'm only bringing this one.)

The chocolate dries fast. Within 15 minutes of adding the white chocolate butterflies, I was able to cover the cheesecake with a layer of Saran plastic wrap ending on the glass edge. This served 2 purposes... it stopped the glass lid from rattling as well as sliding into the cheesecake as we have a 30 min drive on gravel roads to the church.

They saved my Triple Chocolate Cheesecake for the end, asking if the cake stand when with it. I said, yes, with a minimum bid of $50. It sold for $75.

Photos taken at the Dessert Auction Fundraiser can be found at the News From the Pews blog.

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    Kitchen Journal

    I've kept a kitchen journal for years to help me locate favourite recipes in my 100 cook book collection.

    The journal was especially handy during the years I entered baking products in local and provincial fairs.

    As I taught my children how to bake first and then cook, they filled in their own journals. I still have my girls' journals although they may have started 'grown up' ones when they left home.  These handwritten journals are a treasure trove of recipes, personal observations, and culinary rewards. 

    However, our handwritten  journals fail in the ability to share recipes and kitchen knowledge. That's where this new online journal takes over.

    Please join us (the Draper's Acres crew) by sharing your own observations in a comment or by emailing us through our contact page .


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