Monday, February 27, 2017

MENNONITE PECAN BARS

Can you imagine how excited Friend Janice and I were when I discovered a Kitchen Klatter cookbook at an estate sale on Friday? I almost screamed with excitement. Janice immediately wanted me to see what year it was. Well, it was 1980, not one of the first ones, but I was still excited. We looked through the rest of the books on the table to see if there happened to be an earlier printed one. (There wasn't.) I was still excited anyway. If you missed my recent post on the Kitchen Klatter radio show and the recipe for Pride of Iowa cookies, you can read it HERE.

Then we looked to see if the Pride of Iowa cookie recipe was included in it. I turned to the back of the cookbook to look up the title in the index and Friend Dorothy was correct .... there is no index. We tried looking through the pages and found cookies and originally thought they were in alphabetical order with titles but realized after finding "p's" several pages later, that they were just randomly arranged in the area. (I started to say "section" but there are no "title" pages for the different categories either.)

When an SOS text was sent out for volunteers to work the register at Hillcrest Thrift Shop for Saturday, I offered to come in the for the first shift. So I guess you know what I was doing after I got home. Yes, looking through the 5 cookbooks I bought at the sales looking for something to bake and take the next day.

What I found was a recipe called Mennonite Pecan Bars from the Kitchen Klatter cookbook. (It is a 1980 edition of the cookbook, but all of the recipes in the cookbook did appear in copies of the Kitchen Klatter magazine.)

I used butter flavoring, vanilla flavoring, and maple flavoring, but they were not Kitchen Klatter brands.

Before I share the recipe with you, I have to share the response I got at Hillcrest Saturday morning when I took them in. As I was opening the door, two of the young men (Austin and Daniel) who volunteer were coming out the door. They saw me carrying my 9 x 13 - inch container and asked me what I had brought. When I told them, they immediately turned around and followed me back into the room. With just one bite, they bought, at the same time, gave me a thumbs up. Later another volunteer, Michael, told me that Daniel had eaten four. So many of the volunteers came by the register and told me how good they were. I have to agree. They are so good. It is amazing how strong the maple taste is with just one teaspoon of flavoring in the whole recipe. All that is missing is a glass of milk or a cup of coffee.



MENNONITE PECAN BARS

2/3      cup shortening
1           cup brown sugar
1           egg
1/4       teaspoon Kitchen-Klatter butter flavoring
1/2       teaspoon Kitchen-Klatter vanilla flavoring
1           teaspoon Kitchen-Klatter maple flavoring
2          cups flour
1/2       teaspoon salt
1           teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or butter the bottom of a 11 x 15 - inch pan.


Cream the shortening and brown sugar.


Beat in the egg and flavorings.


Sift together the dry ingredients and add. (Oops, forgot to take a picture of the final mixture. It was crumbly.)


Spread in the pan. (This is a little tricky. I didn't think I was going to have enough. It helps to drop the mixture around the bottom of the pan first leaving some in the bowl to add where you need it to fill in spaces. It will be thin but make sure there are no bare places or thin places.)


Spread with the following mixture:

1        egg, beaten
1/2    cup brown sugar
1        cup chopped pecans


After spreading with the topping (This also is a little tricky. Do your best to cover the whole area. It will be a thin covering.),
bake for about 30 minutes, or until done. When cool, cut into small bars.

After thoughts: 

Do they make a shallow pan 11 x 14 - inches? That would work so much better. One end of the bars turned out to be a little thinner so when I cut the bars, the last row broke into pieces. (The pieces still tasted great and I just kept them for us to eat.) Also, they are so much easier to cut if you use a sharp knife when cutting them.

2 comments:

  1. Two posts in one day! Jack pot! I was just thinking I'd email you to see if all was okay as it had been a few days without a post. I'll go back and look for the recipe/post mentioned, just FYI, the link doesn't work (the link to the previous post about Kitchen Klatter). Have a great week! Julie

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    Replies
    1. Hi, Julie,

      Thanks for letting me know about the link. I have fixed it. It was a mistake that two posts were published on the same day. I wrote the salad up last night while I was watching the Oscars and scheduled it on the wrong day. It was supposed to be published tomorrow. My mistake. Guess I was distracted by the TV. I just haven't gotten my act together this whole year with having enough to post 4 posts a week. I'm working on a quilt that I will be writing a tutorial for hopefully soon. Been enjoying our mild winter and walking everyday (well, almost everyday. It was cold this past weekend.) You have a good week also. Patricia

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