Coconut Almond Bars

Howdy friends! How are you this fine, rainy Wednesday evening? I figured you might need a sweet chocolaty pick-me-up! I know I could. I made these quite a while ago and to be honest just never got around to blogging them. But I was flipping through pictures and noticed I had these lovely little shots my hubby took and I just had to share them with you!

This recipe is from one of my favorite baking books - Back to Baking by Anna Olson! I hope you enjoy as much as we did!

Coconut Almond Bars
Minimally adapted from Back to Baking by Anna Olson

Ingredients:

Base:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour

Filling:

• 1 1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 300 ml tin sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt

Topping:

• 5 oz semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp. butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and line an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper so paper comes up the sides.
2. Melt butter and chocolate in a small pan over low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Then add egg and vanilla and stir til blended. Add flour and stir. Spread this mixture into the bottom of prepared an and bake for 10 minutes until it loses its shine. Cool while preparing the filling.
3. For the filling, stir the coconut, almonds, condensed milk, vanilla and salt to combine. Spread over cooled base. Bake 25 minutes until light golden brown. Cool to room temperature before adding the topping.
4. For the topping, melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave on low heat, stirring often.  Pour mixture over cooled filling and spread evenly.
5. Chill the pan for about 2 hours to set the chocolate. Cut the squares while chilled, but then store and enjoy at room temp. I used a small round biscuit cutter to cut mine into cute little round shapes for a fun way to present them!

These bars have amazing chocolaty flavour, but they are a little on the sweet side! If you don't like super sweet treats, then these probably aren't the bars for you! If however you love a little sugar hit - get on making these right away to cure your mid-week blues!

Happy Baking Friends!

Currant Scones

Scones again?!! Yep. I can't get enough of these things lately. Hope you're not sick of them yet!! These are pretty darn good scones from Anna Olson's new cookbook Back to Baking. Anna's got a great dough folding technique that lets you work the dry ingredients into the dough without overworking it. The folding technique makes sure you have scones that rise up nice and high with flakey, buttery layers. 

Currant Scones
Recipe minimally adapted from Back to Baking

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• zest of one lemon, finely grated
• 1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces and chilled
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup cold milk, plus extra for brushing scones
• 1/2 cup dried currants

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, zest and nutmeg in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.
3. Add the chilled butter pieces to the food processor bowl. Pulse until mixture is crumbly, but pieces of butter are still visible.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk the whole egg and egg yolk, then whick in 1 cup of milk. Add to the flour mixture and pulse until dough comes together (do not over work).
5. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and pat into a rough square. Sprinkle currants over the dough, then work them in by pressing them into the dough with your hands, then folding in half, pressing the currants in at the same time (it takes about 4 or 5 folds).
6. Shape the dough into a square and gently roll out into an 8 inch square. Cut the dough into 16 square scones, then place them onto the prepared baking tray, leaving one inch between them.
7. Brush the scones with milk and bake for about 15 minutes, until they are an even golden brown. The scones are best served the day they are baked, but can be reheated the second day for 5 minutes in a 300F oven to refresh them.

I brought these to my friends house in exchange for her sewing me some plastic bag organizers (they're cute btw, I will post the link up here when she gets around to posting about them on her blog). She thought it was more than sufficient payment for her services!! I love how little sugar is in these scones - you can sweeten them up with a touch of jam when serving if they're not quite sweet enough for you. :)

This post has been linked up with Mouth Watering Mondays over at The Sweet Spot. Check it out for some great recipes and inspiration.

This post has also been linked up with Fusion Fridays over at Jennifer Cooks! Head on over there for some weekly inspiration in the form of baking, cooking, crafts and other cool things.
Happy Baking my Friends!

Anna Olson's Back to Baking Book Tour & Cooking Class

 I recently had the pleasure of attending a cooking class at Well Seasoned in Langley, BC that was taught by Anna Olson herself!! Anna was touring around for the launch of her new cookbook Back to Baking and so she stopped in at Well Seasoned to demonstrate some of the recipes from her book for a small group of lucky people. This was seriously one of the most exciting and inspiring experiences I've ever had! And I got to sit right in the front row and chat with Anna on the break (yeah, I'm a baking nerd/ groupie)! So very exciting.

Anna's famous Raisin Butter Tarts

 This post just captures some of my favorite photos of the night, some baking tips I picked up and photos of the recipes she demonstrated for us. :) Hope you enjoy!

I learned that I have been committing a very, very bad baking sin during the cooking class!! I usually use salted butter in all of my baking because unsalted butter is so darn expensive up here (5-6 bucks per pound adds up pretty quick if you do as much baking as I do). But, Anna explained some really great information regarding why its important to use unsalted butter in your baking. Here are the facts:

• Unsalted butter is fresher - salt is a preservative and therefore is added to butter to make it keep longer. Thus unsalted butter has a shorter shelf life and will always be fresher than salted butter.
• Salt content in salted butter varies by brand and even by production batch. Therefore when you bake with salted butter, you don't really know how much salt is already in the butter and if you add any salt you run the risk of oversalting your baked goods. Consistency is key, and baking with salted butter will make it difficult to be consistent due to varied salt content.
• Too much sodium is unhealthy - if you start with unsalted butter and add the desired amount of salt, you control how much sodium goes into your baking and therefore you control your sodium intake.

Those facts convinced me! Hope they convince you too. It sounds like unsalted butter is worth the extra money to me! :)

Raspberry & White Chocolate Rugelach

Yep, thats right, I got to sit this close to her!!

One other tidbit I took from Anna's class - tapered french rolling pins are ideal for rolling out pastry into round shapes. They're easier to work with and maneuver than the block rolling pins and the tapering allows you to put an angle on the pin while rolling that will enable you to make round shapes really nicely and easily. I will be doing a demonstration soon because I received a beautiful french rolling pin for Christmas from my brother-in-law. Stay tuned!!

Boozy apple crisp trifle

Low fat, low sugar pumpkin muffins

Anna Olson & Me

 Meeting Anna was such a pleasure - she was so personable and down to earth. I didn't really know what to expect when going to her class, but it was so great! Each time I open her cookbook I'm amazed at the quality of the recipes in the book and the variety of the recipes. She has things as easy as chocolate chip cookies and then you flip to the next section and its far more technical - think wedding cake dressed in fondant. This is a cookbook for all levels, so if you like to bake, head out and pick up one of these books for yourself!

So excited - I finally own an autographed cookbook!

Happy Baking my Friends!