Honey Bars (Take 1)

So Craig and I are going to an Oktoberfest put on by his home brew club (Temecula Valley Homebrewers Association) during the first weekend of October. The theme for the event is (of course) German and we'll be having a pot-luck dinner the 2nd night in. So I was on a mission to find a yummy dessert to make and share. I found this recipe for German Lebkuchen Bars (German Honey Cakes) and thought it'd be the perfect dessert after all of the other German foods everyone else was bringing. I hit up the local grocery store only to find out that they don't carry two of the ingredients I would need (both of the candied items). Now, normally I would figure out something to put in it's place, but it would have ended up being 1/2 a cup of modified ingredients and I wasn't about to be that courageous. So I stood in the middle of the baking aisle, called my Mom to ask her a few “what if” and “what is” questions and then began looking up a different recipe for the same thing that required less “special” ingredients. After finding five difference recipes I finally found one that only required I buy two ingredients (as I already had everything else at home).

Here is the recipe I ended up with: Honey Bars

Now, I ended up doubling the recipe and tossed in a few modifications based on other recipe's I've seen. I used sliced almonds instead of walnuts because I am not a big walnut fan and I don't know many who are. They sell sliced almonds in 5oz packages so I went with that, which was just under 2 cups worth. If you don't double the recipe then the smaller size package of sliced almonds will work fine (I think it's a 2.5 or 3 oz package). I also added 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and a dash or two of ground cloves. It just sounded good, but keep in mind I added those amounts to the doubled recipe. According to the bottom of the baking instructions it says if you use an 8x8 pan to only fill it 2/3 full. I only have one 8x8 pan so for the first round of baking I filled mine 1/2 full and it puffed up like a nice cake, ended up adding about 10 minutes to the baking time, and cooked unevenly. The second round of baking I didn't have enough batter to get to even the half way mark on the 8x8 pan it ended up being about 1/3 full, took only 30 minutes, and baked evenly throughout. The entire house smells wonderfully sweet but I am disappointed in how these turned out. I was expecting "bars" not "cake" but they turned out to be a very "heavy" cake so they won't crumble apart when cut into serve-able squares. My overall notes after tasting them: I am glad I added the cinnamon, otherwise these would not have much flavor to them, they are a bit dry (not bad) so even adding some chopped apples to it would be great! I felt like I was eating an apple cinnamon muffin, only without the apple and not a muffin. I would recommend cream cheese frosting on these, too (but alas, I have none).

Cooking tip: When cooking with honey, spray some cooking spray on your measuring utensils before measuring out the honey. It will prevent the honey (or other super sticky ingredients) from sticking! (Credit to Paula Deen for that lifesaver!)


Now, if I could just get someone else to clean the kitchen.