Betty Crocker’s Praline Bars and Butterscotch Brownies

The other day I found Fuzz looking at Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser. I think she liked the colorful drawing on the book jacket. A few days later, I found the book jacket, but the book had been removed. I went looking for the book and found it upstairs under Fuzzy’s bed where she’d hid it. It was full of crushed Coca Puffs, and Fuzz confessed to using the books as a cereal crusher. After giving her a lecture on how to treat books, I reminded her of her own cookbook – “Delicious Desserts” by Barbara Beery, who runs a local cooking school called “Batter Up Kids”. She’s been reading it ever since.

I had the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls, but most of our cookbooks were for adults. I loved looking throughI spent a lot of time looking at the pictures in one called “The Blender Way of Better Cooking” and liked the colorful illustrations in “Betty Crocker’s Cooking For Two” which my mother had received as a wedding gift. When I was old enough to read the recipes, I chose a bar cookie from that book. It was probably the first bar cookie I ever made from scratch and I remember how much people liked it.

Here’s the recipe. The reason I emphasize thoroughly mixing the dry ingredients is because I didn’t. I took a bite and got a bitter taste from what must have been some stray baking powder. This what happens to lazy bakers who don’t thoroughly mix their dry ingredients. Next time, I’ll be more careful. Luckily, the bars (aside from the one piece with the baking powder) are excellent!

Betty Crocker’s Praline Bars

1/3 cup shortening**
1 cup brown sugar (200 grams)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (
3/4 cup flour (97 grams)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup coarsely chopped, toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 inch square pan with foil and spray or grease bottom of pan only.

In a large saucepan, melt shortening. Stir brown sugar into hot melted shortening. Remove from heat and stir in egg and vanilla – beating with a wooden spoon until mixed.

Thoroughly mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into sugar mixture. Stir in pecans. Bake for 25 minutes.

Let cool slightly, lift from pan, score while warm. Let cool completely.

**I have this memory of making these with vegetable oil and having good results, but I need to re-test.

UPDATED

The version above is very old. Recently, I found another version (still from Betty Crocker) that uses butter. It doesn’t have pecans.

Butterscotch Brownies

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (56 grams)
1 cup (packed) brown sugar (400 grams)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (5 ml)
1 large egg
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (97 grams)
1 teaspoon baking powder (5 ml)
1/4 teaspoon salt (1 ml)

Preheat oven to 300 degree F. Line an 8 inch metal pan with foil and spray bottom with cooking spray.

Melt butter in a saucepan set over medium heat. When butter is partially melted, add the brown sugar and stir until mixture is glossy and butter is melted. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then whisk in egg and vanilla. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt and gently stir into sugar mixture.

Spread batter in pan and bake on center rack for 30 minutes until golden-brown around the edges and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool slightly. Lift foil from pan and cut into squares.

Makes 16

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Tagged as: blondies