Tag Archives: Potato Chips

Sweet and Salty Magic Bars

on wire rackThese classic bar cookies have been around since the 1850’s! They also go by the moniker of Magic Bars, Hello Dolly Bars, Five Layer and even Seven Layer Bars. Essentially, they all begin with a melted butter and cookie crust, typically crushed graham wafers. This sweet base gets topped with more sweetness, usually chocolate or butterscotch chips, sweetened coconut and some type of nuts. A thick layer of sweetened condensed milk acts as the glue to hold everything together.

Whatever they’re called, they have never really appealed to me because they just seemed too tooth-achingly sweet. But last week I saw this charming video and knew I had to try this twist on these bars. In her new book, “Modern Potluck”, Kristen Donnelly solves the sickly sweet problem by swapping out a cookie base with a potato chip base. What??? Pure genius.

I had high hopes for these “potato chip crusted magic bars”. The combination of sweet and salty is my kryptonite. I went shopping for potato chips, because I rarely keep them in my house. Shockingly, don’t have much will power when it comes to salt. By the way, did you know that they sell unsalted potato chips? Chicken and waffle flavoured potato chips is one thing, but I draw the line at unsalted! I mean, salt is the whole point of potato chips, right?

I whipped up a batch of Kristen’s potato chip crusted magic bars. I was so excited I could barely wait for them to cool.potato chip crusted barsThe first bite was interesting. The crust was not as crispy as I thought it would be. Nor did it taste as salty as I was hoping for. The second bite left an almost rancid aftertaste in my mouth. I had eaten a few potato chips out of the bag as I was making the crust, and they tasted great. I suspect that cooking the potato chips a second time caused some kind of chemical reaction that changed the taste. I was so disappointed. I knew that Kristen’s idea of adding a salty crust was a great idea and I wanted to make these bars work.

And then I remembered these pretzel crusted treats I made last year. Why not trade potato chips for pretzels? Why not indeed? I topped mine with bittersweet chocolate chips, unsweetened coconut chips, salted cashews, almonds and macadamia nuts, and chopped vanilla caramels.cutting caramels

 

Watch the magic happen!

 

These bars have it all. A perfect sweet-salty balance and great textural contrast. Crunch from pretzels, nuts and toasted coconut, gooey sweetness from  sweetened condensed milk,  bittersweet from the chocolate, and chewiness from the caramel. A perfect treat. baked up close

one barOh, and I figured out why they’re called magic bars. Set them out with some cold milk and watch them magically disappear. They are even more delicious straight from the freezer!

Click here to print recipe for Sweet and Salty Magic Bars.

with milk

31. New York Deli Rye

New York Deli Rye“.  Those very words conjure up some pretty powerful images.  For Peter Reinhart, author of  The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, those words bring back the childhood memory of having to make that agonizing decision on visits to Hymie’s Deli; would it be a roast beef, schmaltz  and onion sandwich or a corned beef,  coleslaw and russian dressing sandwich?  But always on onion rye!  Oh, such decisions. 

For me, the memory does not involve rye bread at all.  I know, sacrilege to deli lovers everywhere and I apologize.  My starch of choice was potato chips.  I’d wrap the  pastrami slices around a great big potato chip.  The folded chips were the best.  (We called those wish chips)  Okay, all you cardiologists out there please don’t comment on this post warning me about impending heart disease.  I do not indulge in this on a regular basis any more, but every once in a while…

 

 

Bread # 31 in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is New York Deli Rye.  The version in the book adds sauteed onions to the dough.  This seemed kind of strange to me.  (I know. … This coming from a woman who wraps her deli meat around potato chips).  I guess it just seems odd because I love rye bread best for breakfast, toasted with salted butter and American Spoon sour cherry preserves.  I ate this for breakfast every day for 2 entire years.  I tend to do that.  These days it’s Oat Squares cereal, with a handful of Fibre First on top and a sliced banana.  I’m just a wild and crazy girl!  All this to say, I decided to leave out the sauteed onions.

This bread is a two day affair.  I was thrilled because I got to use my sourdough starter “Phyl” again in this recipe.  I mixed 1 cup of Phyl with white rye flour and water and it sit on the counter for about 3 hours until bubbly.  Then into the fridge it went for an overnight rest.  The next day the starter is mixed with the rest of the ingredients (bread flour, rye flour, brown sugar, salt, yeast, caraway seeds, buttermilk and vegetable oil). 

Rye flour has a very low gluten content (6-8%) as compared to regular bread flour (12%).  What this means is that you have to be careful and not knead this bread for too long or else the dough becomes very gummy.  I kneaded it by hand for about 6 minutes.  A regular wheat dough recipe normally requires 12 minutes of kneading.  I ended up with a beautiful supple dough.

After the dough rests and doubles in size, it’s time to form the loaves.  This bread could be formed into sandwich loaves and baked in a loaf pan but to me, rye bread should be an oval free form loaf.  So I shaped mine into batards (torpedo shape) so I would have a nice oval rye loaves.  Here’s a video of me forming the dough into batards.  Since no one was home at the time, I managed to figure out how to mount the camera onto a tripod as shaping batards takes 2 hands.  Another new skill mastered!

After about 90 minutes they have grown to about 1 1/2 times their original size and it’s time to slash.  Like this:

And like this: (I think I’m finally getting the hang of this!)

I brushed the loaves with beaten egg white to ensure a shiny finish.  I was not disappointed.  These were some gorgeous burnished loaves.

Slicing into the loaves revealed a fairly tight crumb with just enough holes to make me happy.

 This rye bread made excellent pastrami and dill pickle sandwiches and I threw in a few potato chips for old times sake.

 

Check out what some of my fellow Bread Freak friends thought of this bread:

Oggi of “I can do that” loved the flavour and chew of this bread.

Sally of “Bewitching Kitchen” was surprised at how much she liked this one.

Mags of “The Other Side of 50” made adorable bread bowls.

Paul of “Yumarama” changed things up a bit and used some dark rye flour.

Katya of “Bread Babes” baked her rye in a clay baker.