• Ann Bailey

Ann Bailey

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One of my holiday traditions is to take some time off of work to spend with my family and get some winter projects completed.

This year, one of the things I did was to go through hundreds of recipes that my mom had collected. It was bittersweet as I enjoyed reading through the delicious hand-written recipes and recalling the many meals at which she served dishes made from them, but felt sad that she was no longer here to cook them.

Because my mom was a farm woman who, over the years, made meals not only for me and my family, but also for dozens of employees, she had recipes for breakfast, dinner and supper meals, beginning with appetizers and ending with desserts. She also had recipes for lunches and snacks to provide some extra fuel for the workers during harvest and haying.

I thought I’d share, from time to time, some of my favorites of hers. I figured recipes for bars would be good ones to start with because this time of year it seems like there are a lot of community, school and church events where people are asked to bring a pan of them.

Here’s a sampling:

Caramel Layer Squares

Ingredients:

14-ounce package caramels

1/3 cup evaporated milk

1 package German chocolate cake mix

¾ cup butter or margarine, melted

1/3 cup evaporated milk

1 cup chopped nuts

6-ounces (1-cup) semi-sweet chocolate pieces

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13-by-9 inch pan. Combine first two ingredients in heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until caramels are melted. Keep warm. Combine remaining ingredients except chocolate pieces, in large bowl.

By hand, stir until dough holds together. Press one-half of dough into prepared pan, reserve remaining dough for topping. Bake at 350 degrees for six minutes. Sprinkle chocolate pieces over baked crust, spread caramel mixture over all. Crumble reserved dough over caramel mixture. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

Makes about three dozen bars.

Raspberry Brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter or margarine.

1½ cups sugar

4 large eggs

¾ cup seedless raspberry jam

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in medium bowl and set aside.

Melt butter or margarine in large saucepan over low heat. Stir in sugar with wire whisk Add eggs, one at a time. Stir in seedless raspberry jam and vanilla extract. Use spoon to stir flour mixture into chocolate mixture, just until blended.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted 2 inches from the edge comes out almost clean. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

Lemon Bars

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup margarine or butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon lemon extract

½ teaspoon baking powder

Powdered sugar

For crust, combine all-purpose flour and margarine or butter. Pat into 8-inch square pan. Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from oven and set on wire rack.

For topping: Combine sugar, eggs, flour, lemon juice lemon extract and baking powder. Mix until frothy. Pour over crust. Bake at 375 for 18 to 22 minutes or until light brown. Remove from oven and dust with powdered sugar. Cool on wire rack.

* Cherry Coffeecake Bars

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1½ cups sugar

3 cups flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 can cherry pie filling

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons milk

Directions: Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix together with butter and sugar mixture. Blend dry ingredients and add to butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla mixture. Put 2/3 of ingredients in bottom of 10-by-15-inch pan. Pour pie filling over top. Drop remaining dough by teaspoons over top of pie filling. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and drizzle with glaze made by mixing powdered sugar, butter and milk. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

* These bars are good served with breakfast or brunch because, as their name implies, they taste like coffeecake. Other fruit pie fillings, such as blueberry, can be substituted for cherry.

Peanut Butter Dream Bars

Ingredients:

2 cups quick oats

1½ cups flour

1 cup chopped peanuts

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon salt

1 cup margarine

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/3 cup chunky peanut butter

1 cup M & Ms

Mix quick oats, flour, chopped peanuts, brown sugar, soda, salt and margarine until thoroughly moistened and resemble coarse crumbs. Reserve 1½ cup crumbs. Pat remaining crumbs in 13-by-9 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

Combine: Sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter until well-blended.

Spread condensed milk and peanut butter mixture over partially baked crust to within ½ inch of edges.

Combine reserved crumbs and M & M candies and sprinkle over condensed milk. Press candies in lightly. Bake at 350 for 20 to 22 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

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