Yesterday morning I went out into the garage to get some meat and bread out of the freezer. While I was out there I saw the last 2 pounds of butter and thought …. oooh, I can make cookies! Isn’t that what YOU do when you find the last 2 pounds of butter in your freezer? Probably not, but that was where my brain went 🙂 So I got out my Nestle Toll House Best Loved Recipes cookbook to look up the recipe for my all time favorite Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies (which isn’t in there by the way 😦 ) and while flipping through the book, I found a recipe that looked OH SO DELICIOUS and I had everything for it! So, here it is….I love the buttery brown sugar shortbread crust (& crumb)….and the chocolatey filling is perfect with the raspberry jam! Oh my these are delicious, and it is all I can do to keep from going to the refrigerator to get one right now (oh, yes, it is summer in Cali and therefore these went into the refrigerator so that they didn’t melt).
Chocolatey Raspberry Crumb Bars
from Nestle Toll House Best Loved Recipes cookbook
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- 2 cups unbleached flour
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
- 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 1/3 cup seedless raspberry all-fruit jam (I use the Smucker’s All Fruit jam)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 13 x 9″ baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Beat butter in large mixing bowl until creamy (you could use a standing mixer, but I just used my hand mixer). Beat in flour, brown sugar and salt until mixture is crumbly. WIth LIGHTLY floured fingers press 1 3/4 cup (approx. 2/3 of total mixture) of the crumb mixture into the bottom of the prepared baking pan. Reserve remaining mixture (I put it into the fridge to firm the butter up a little bit to make it easier to crumble in the next steap).
Bake crust for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown (this will puff a little bit all the way across).
Microwave 1 cup of the chocolate chips and the condensed milk in a medium microwave safe bowl on HIGH for 1 minute. Stir. Chocolate chips may retain some of their shape. In necessary, microwave at additional 10-15 second increments, stirring just until chips are melted. Spread over hot crust.
Stir chopped pecans into reseved crumb mixture; sprinkl over chocolate layer. Drop teasponfuls of raspberry jam over crumb mixture. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup chocolate chips.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until center is set. Cool in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Makes 3 dozen bars.
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