CHEWY M&M COOKIE BARS

Hello everyone! I am still alive and kicking and I have a lot of things to share with you! The most important thing is that my little blog is not so little anymore. It turned 7 years old on October 8th and I even managed to remember it inspite of all the craziness I've got myself into. When I saw the posters in our school about the ACF Hot Foods Team, I really didn't know what it was all about other than that it was a food competition. I am game for any food competitions as long as the judges know what they are doing. I know it's not about winning all the time but if you have to lose just because the judges don't know a thing about what they are judging,it sucks BIG time! Anyway,so when I saw the posters, I wanted to give it a try...obviously!

They had 3 rounds of selection and I passed them all! So, I am officially a part of the ACF Hot Foods Team representing Le Cordon Blue, Minneapolis- St. Paul!! It also means that I need to stay back after school on weekdays to practice for the competition which is sometime in March. It's a 2 day competition and it's INTENSE! You have no idea how excited I am to be a part of this team because it will definately benefit me in many ways,not just having that cool title on my resume but also on my knife skills,timing and discipline in the kitchen. One thing I've realised after joining school is that there are so many little things that you can never learn if you don't get trained professionally. Afterall, I really care about the little things in life...we all do,right?

The next thing is that I am on the President's list for securing a 4.0 GPA for the last quarter in school. We had a celebration where we were given certificates and a small badge which can be pinned onto our uniforms! Then there's this Open Baking Lab that I go to every Wednesday to learn more about baking,ofcourse! All these have been keeping me super busy that I had zero time to come here and tell you all about what we've been doing otherwise in school. We had to come up with our own Original Bread Formula for our practicals and I baked a Chipotle Onion & Walnut Bread which came out really really well ! I am almost done with my Breads & Viennoiserie  class and we will be starting a new term next week.

Okay, about these cookie bars now. We are having a Halloween party in our building for the little ones and I baked these for the party.Ian is dressing up as the Ninja turtle Leonardo. He looks so cute in it! I will try and post a photograph when I get a chance. I found this recipe on Cooks Illustrated.

CHEWY M&M COOKIE BARS
Makes 24  bars

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
12 tablespoons unsalted butter,melted
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups M&M's

Method:
Preheat the oven to 325F and line a 9X13 inch baking tin with a parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper.

In a bowl,whisk together flour,salt and baking powder.Set aside.
In another bowl,beat the melted butter and sugars for 1 minute. Add the vanilla,the egg and egg yolk and beat till combined,30 seconds or so. Add the flour mixture and gently mix until just combined. Stir in 1 cup of M&M's. It will be a slightly thick and sticky dough. Spread it into the prepared pan and press it out evenly. Sprinkle the remaining M&M's over it and pat it in gently.Bake for 25-30 minutes. Let it cool completely and then cut them into bars. Store it in an airtight container.

This could be one of the few posts where I didn't talk much about the food! Weird,huh?
When Ian came home from his Montessori,he was really excited to see these bars and ate one right away. He really is a cookie monster.By the way, he has totally become an Appa's boy now. He even told me that Appa baked these cookies when I asked him who baked them! That monkey is always with Jobin and it's really nice to see how that bond is building up more and more as the days go by.

If you don't know what to do with all those candies after Halloween trick or treating,just chop and add them into this recipe and create something new! These are some really good fudgy cookie bars,I have a feeling that you will love these!

 

MILLIONAIRE'S SHORTBREAD BARS...for 800,000 hits!

So, this little space of mine crossed 800,000 hits and I want to celebrate it with something sweet,something simple yet something simply delicious. If it has chocolate in it, it's an added bonus!I have a special liking towards shortbreads,especially these Ultimate Shortbreads! I love the fact that they are super easy to bake and it tastes like a piece of heaven! These 3 tier bars are another version of my favourite shortbreads and they are an instant hit whenever and wherever I have served them.It's quite a complicated looking one but trust me, you can pull it off in less than 30 mins (cooking time)!

Now that we both (Jobin & myself) are back to our regular routine,we are enjoying looking at our new home from different angles,keeping things straight , moving the furniture a bit that side just to see if it looks better being closer to the wall, we painted together. Oh yes, we painted 2 walls in our condo, together. One in our bedroom and one in our living room. The bedroom has an olive green paint with white bold stripes and the living room one has a nice ocean blue colour. I hope to stencil my kitchen wall, very soon. I have a pot of mint growing steadily even now and it keeps me company while I roll the chapathi's for Jobin, for his lunch.I always thought I never had a green thumb but the truth is every living plant need some water, every now and then ;-)

This recipe has been mentioned here before but I thought it needed more attention just like my Chocolate Biscuit Pudding, as it is something you all should try, atleast once in a lifetime. OK, so what if you are on a diet? Atleast, make this for someone else so that you can experience what I experienced when I cut into the layers. It's such a monochormatically (?) perfect dessert/snack which is equally heavy on the stomach as it has quite a lot of  butter in it :-) Hmmm, that reminds me of the days in Kannur when there was a butter shortage and I how I used to miss baking then! :-)

MILLIONAIRE'S SHORTBREAD BARS
Ingredients
Base:
120g butter
60g sugar
175 g flour

Pre-heat oven to 350F/180C and line an 8x8inch square tin with foil with some extra foil hanging over the sides.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.Add the flour and mix to form a dough.Pat the dough into the tin and prick with the tines of a fork.Bake for 20 mins or until pale golden brown in colour. Keep it aside.

Caramel filling:
120 g butter
60g sugar
2 tbsp caramel syrup (melt some sugar till golden brown)
200ml condensed milk

On medium high,boil all the ingredients together till it starts to leave the sides of the pan. Pour over the baked base.

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Melt and pour 150 g of dark chocolate over the caramel layer. Let it set in the fridge till the chocolate firms up. Cut into bars and enjoy!

I demonstrated these bars for a class of mine in Kannur, a month ago and all of them loved it. Go on, try this immensely satisfying goodie and let me know how you liked them! This is perfect for birthday parties, lunch boxes or even as a midnight snack, which is what I would chose this to be :-)