Must Catch Up and Hitting the Bars

I confess, that I have fallen behind lately - not on my baking but on my blogging! It was about two weeks ago that I made these really fabulous bars (once again you thought I had been drinking...)
I did the three in one weekend because I was determined to finish the cookie section and move on.  Last weekend I saved for something special; more on that later.


I LOVE citrus, I am repeating myself I know, but I am over 50 so I get to do that.  So then my first choice was citrus squares.  These are Martha's version of lemon squares, just a little jacked up.  She uses lemon and lime and also adds some wheat germ to her shortbread crust.  It's practically a health food!  They were quite delicious except that I had a little bit of trouble with the dough sticking to the pan.  I had to leave about 1/2" around the sides of the pan that I could not get out without blasting dynamite.  The middle was lovely, tasty, pucker-up citrusy and I have to admit that the wheat germ added a nice texture contrast to the smooth topping.  Another winner for my repertoire.


Who doesn't love brownies?  Please don't tell me if you don't because frankly, you're not my kind of folk. I will still like you if we differ on carrot cake, or lemon squares or even on dreaded bananas, but if you don't like chocolate - we're through.  Go away.


Now that we are all in agreement, I have to say that these are easy, luscious and more fudgey than cake-like.  It calls for bittersweet chocolate which I was having trouble finding.  It is not the same as semi-sweet by the way, bittersweet has a higher cocoa content which gives it a darker richer flavour.  So to compensate, I put in a couple of tablespoons of a  new President's Choice cocoa powder that is AWESOME, and reduced my flour by that same amount.  They are so rich that they do not need any type of icing or glaze.    They were a big hit with everyone and I even got a special request for another batch at work the next week.  The other batch, well... that was like the old pre-martha Susan.  I added the cocoa powder but forgot to reduce the flour by the same amount.  The result?  **cough**  **cough**  As dry as the Sahara.  Picture camels coming to call.  That was embarrassing....


The third type of bar cookie I made was a salted caramel nut bar.  Yummy and I got to use my candy thermometer to make the caramel.  That was fun and the caramel alone was so delicious. I could have sat there and eaten a bowl of it.  No, I did not do that!  


That was the only bar that gave me a bit of trouble.  The caramel topping would not harden so they kind of spread a bit.  Not a big deal.  So here is the picture of these delights.