Daylight savings or Standard time... whatever time we're in now always gets me down, luckily there are friends who find joy in this darkness and propose awesome celebrations of _________!!!! My reason to celebrate was trying new recipes! and maybe... i don't know... the second turning of the leaves :-) It's been beautiful for a week and the weather suddenly went to crap but when it hits mid 70's in november, that's always a reason to celebrate too.
I stumbled across this amazing sounding recipe: Burnt Butter Toffee Bars found here. My vision for this dish was something a little different than the recipe and i ventured out to the grocery store to purchase items to make this treat. My vision was this: I wanted a ginger snap crust and a delicious almost carmel-y toffee flavored firm yet gooey middle layer topped off with some nice snappy dark chocolate sprinkled with salt but my mission was thwarted from the start. The ginger snap cookies were placed on the TOP SHELF of the grocery store.... the very top shelf where onlky the front bags are grabable at my height. I wandered around looking for a tall person or an employee to help me get a bag that was shoved as far back on the shelf as any unfortunate bag of lonely gingersnaps would be. i stood there jumping up and down trying to grab the bag but my small hands couldn't get a good grasp of the bag. It was such a tragedy. Dejected and forlorn i hung my head in shame and walked away from the cookies and crackers aisle and continued shopping. At that point, i was madly thinking about the different ways i could try to get that snappy ginger taste into the crust and furiously decided to craft a plan B.
Plan B was to use my leftover graham crackers. In retrospect, i would completely change the recipe. It was overall an incredibly delicious treat but it just wasn't what i had wanted. The recipe below is what i did. I'll supplement it with changes that i'd make next time i make this.
Burnt Butter Toffee Bars
1 c butter
2 pkg graham crackers
1/3 c molasses
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
12 oz semi sweet chocolate
1 c brown sugar
2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In a food processor, throw in the graham crackers and pulse until crumbly.
- Melt the butter in a pot and cook until it browns in color. Don't over cook because it'll burn and you'll have tasty burnt morsels of butter in your toffee (oops... )
- Pour half the butter into the food processor and pulse with the butter. Add the molasses and ginger and cinnamon and continue to pulse until the liquids are incorporated. Press into a lined 9x13 pan and bake for 10-15 min. (At this point, I thought it would have been wiser for me to make the crumbs moister so they'd hold together better. i would pulse in cold butter, a little milk, or maybe even an egg with the graham crackers.... IF YOU CHOOSE TO FOLLOW THIS RECIPE!!!! the final product was delicious but the crust did not hold together at all.... it was so sadders)
- while the crust cools, prepare the toffee. In the pot with the remaining butter, add brown sugar, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, cream, and corn syrup. bring the mixture to a nice boil and continue cooking for about 5 minutes or so, stirring continuously.
- When the concoction takes on a beautiful amber color and smells like buttery heaven, pour over the cooled crust. Let the toffee settle and cool.
- After the toffee is cooled (it won't stick to your fingers when you poke it), melt the chocolate in the microwave. When melted, pour over the toffee and sprinkle with kosher salt or some big chunky salt.
Melty Over Toffee
Salty Sprinkles
- When cool, use a clean sharp knife to cut into squares. eat
Yummmm
This turned out to be absolutely delicious but it wasn't quite what i had expected or wanted. it was a success wrought in failure :-) but a delicious success. a friend called it chocolate goo, and i think that really is the right way to describe it.
next time, it'll be so amazing.... i promise.
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