Bakesale Bestsellers II: Wonder Bars, A Flexible Recipe

September 22, 2012

Last year’s Bakesale Bestsellers: Sugar Cookie Wands were a hit, raising tons of change for the kids’ school. Even so, I couldn’t just repeat myself again…

This year, I needed somthing easy and quick. So, I fiddled with a recipe I think I must have cribbed from the back of either a box of graham crackers or a can of condensed milk back in university [when my roommates and I had a giant kitchen, by the way, with a double oven, that we only really ever took advantage of when we made the full Thanksgiving feast]. For this year’s Wonder Bars, we used a combination of Semi-Sweet, Butterscotch, and White Chocolate Chips, but, as you’ll see below, the recipe is quite flexible in terms of mix-ins. With this in mind, our Wonder Bars will help you use up the last of the bits and bobs in your sweets cabinet. Anything in the recipe in [brackets] is optional and need not be added.

Of course, half, no, three-quarters of the battle with bakesales is making things look tempting – so the real draw here, aside from the baking, is to wrap your bakesale best-sellers, whatever they may be, in something that makes them attractive. Today, I wrapped each bar individually in clear cellophane from the dollar store. Then, I made quick and easy tags, printed them on a full sheet of white sticker paper, also from the dollar store, cut them out, and affixed them to the front of each wrapped bar. You could also print these out on cardstock, hole-punch them, and attach them to the bars with ribbons.

Here’s a free printable pdf of my Wonder Bar Labels.

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Print Recipe

Wonder Bars

[A Flexible Recipe] makes 24 squares*

Author: Roseanne Carrara, The Lunchbox Season

Ingredients

1/2 c [+1 to 4 tbs: optional] unsalted butter melted
3 c total of one or more of the following: graham cracker crumbs, oreo crumbs, cocoa cookie crumbs, ground chocolate wafers or vanilla wafers
[1/4 c sugar, white or brown] optional
1 1/4 c [+1/4 cup: optional] semi-sweet chocolate chips or other style chip of your choice: chocolate, white, milk, peanut butter...
1.25 c [+.25 c: optional] total of any of the following in any proportion you like: butterscotch, white, milk, dark, peanut-butter chips, m&m's, chopped nuts, smashed chocolate bars of any kind, super-splintered bits of candycane, busted pretzels, toffee bits, raisins, other dried fruit
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cup [+1/4 c: optional] sweetened shredded coconut

Instructions

Heat oven to 375.
Line a 15x10* jelly roll pan with a generous amount of parchment paper
Make sure the paper stays in the pan by wiping your empty butter wrapper in a few spots on the pan
or by sprinkling it with a bit of water before pressing or folding the paper in place.
Mix the melted butter, cookie crumbs and [optional sugar].
Pat the mixture evenly into the paper-lined pan.
Bake for 10 minutes and allow to cool completely.
Spread chocolate chips and the heaping cup of your other ingredient(s) on top of the cooled crust.
Open your can of sweetened condensed milk and pour evenly over the top.
Sprinkle the coconut evenly over the gooey loveliness.
Bake for 10 minutes or until the coconut looks toasted evenly.
Let cool completely on a wire rack.
You might even want to refrgerate the bars for 10 minutes or so before slicing.
WRAP ELEGANTLY, LABEL, PRICE, & SELL, SELL, SELL