Friday, August 01, 2008

Gooey Chocolate Coconut Bars

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I got this recipe from a cookbook my parents gave me ten years ago called The Great Big Cookie Book by Hilaire Walden.  It is big and heavy and has some great recipes in it and I love that there is a photo for every recipe.  I may even start doing my own weekday baking of something from this book (like Tuesday's With Dorie, but just on my own).  So-yesterday I made these really yummy bars.  They are so easy and so bad for you! ;)  Here's the recipe as I made it:

1/2 cup butter, melted (that seemed like a lot, I will probably try less next time as this is just a binder for the graham cracker crust)

6 oz. graham crackers, crushed

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

pinch of salt

1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut

1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

1 cup chopped pecans (Hilaire used walnuts, I gave pecans a try and love them)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Melt butter.  In bowl of food processor, pulse graham crackers until fine.  Add sugar (I would also probably just omit this as the crackers are sweet enough), melted butter and salt and pulse until all combined.  Press mixture evenly in the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan lined with tin foil. 

Sprinkle the coconut over the cookie base, then sprinkle over the chocolate chips.  Pour the condensed milk evenly over the chocolate.  Sprinkle the walnuts on top.  Bake for 25 minutes (I thought the bars were a little overdone even with 25 minutes, even though the recipe calls for 30 minutes baking).  Watch it after 20 minutes and take out of oven after it starts to brown.)  Allow bars to cool on wire rack until completely cooled, possibly even overnight.  Remove foil with bars from pan, put on cutting board and cut into bars.

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If you love coconut and chocolate, these bars are for you!  I thought the graham crust was a little over baked and around the edges, but delicious!

1 comment:

Randi said...

This is just like a hello dolly or 7 layer bar.