Saturday, May 31, 2008

Delta Bars

Has anyone ever heard of Delta Bars? I'm on my way to a barbecue this evening, and spent a long time this morning pouring through my bookmarked recipes to find something to bring with me. We were getting slammed by thunderstorms, no shopping for me, so I had to work with the ingredients I had on hand. I ended up choosing Delta Bars from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. Our copy is so old and worn, with the cover falling off. Anyway, these bars jumped out at me because 1) They're totally weird, and 2) There's no photo of what they look like.
The concept is a basic sugar cookie crust, with a brown sugar meringue (mixed with some chopped nuts) spread over the top and then baked. The description says "Nutty brown sugar meringue bakes into cooky base to make chewy butterscotch bar. Popular with young and old." I wonder how they'll turn out!!

Here's the recipe.

Delta Bars
From Betty Crocker's Cooky Book
Makes 24 bars

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granualted sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Heat oven to 375f. Mix shortening, granulated sugar, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla well. Measure flour by dipping method. Stir together dry ingredients through salt. Blend into shortening mixture and mix thorougly. Spread in greased baking pan, 13"x9.5"x2". Beat egg white until foamy. Gradually beat in brown sugar. Continue beating until mixture is stiff and glossy. Fold in nuts. Spread meringue over dough in pan. Bake about 25 minutes. Cut while warm in 2" sqaures.

Delta Bars



Edit to add: These bars are, um, totally underwhelming. You can not cut through meringue, warm or otherwise. It is dry and crunchy. The top layer of these bars crumbled and broke into a zillion pieces when I tried to slice through. Also, note to the world: Shortening does not make a delicious cookie base. Because it has no taste.

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