TWD: Snickery Bars

Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours is one of those books that I read often but do not have the discipline to try out the recipes regularly. So when I found out that there is a weekly event calls Tuesdays with Dorie (more details here), I wrote to Laurie immediately and request to be included in the group. Hopefully, by participating in the event, I will be more motivated to make full use of the book... :-P

My first entry for TWD is snickery bars, a type of bar cookies in which the taste resembles Snickers, as described by Ms. Greenspan. Personally, I prefer this over Snickers, as it is not as sickeningly sweet and it also has an additional layer of shortbread cookies which gives an extra crunch and buttery flavour. The saltiness of the peanuts went well with the caramel and it tastes even better when it is mixed with the dulce de leche.

I've read somewhere before that eating sweet stuff will make a person happy. Well, I think this is really true for me, I couldn't stop grinning when I was having the first slice of the pastry, it's yummy indeed!

On a final note, this recipe is originally known as Snickery Squares in the book. But the pastry had been sliced into smaller retangular bars so that I won't eat too much at one go, hence the change of name to Snickery Bars. ;-)

Snickery Bars
(Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: from My Home to Yours)

Ingredients:
Crust:
1/2 cup plain flour
1/8 cup sugar
1 tablespoon icing sugar
56g butter, chilled
1/2 egg yolks

Fillings:
1/6 cup sugar (or ~38g)
2 tablespoons water
3/4 cup salted peanuts
3/4 cup store-bought dulce de leche

Topping:
80g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
28g butter, at room temperature

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 175 deg C.
2) Lightly grease a 9X4 inch baking pan, then line baking sheet around the interior of pan.

To make the crust:
3) Combine plain flour, castor sugar and icing sugar in the bowl of a mixer.
4) Add in chilled butter and mix at low speed until the batter resemble coarse meal.
5) Pour the egg yolk over the ingredients until the dough forms clumps, stop mixing before the batter comes together in a ball.
6) Press the batter evenly across the base of baking pan. Prick the dough all over with a fork.>
7) Bake the dough for 15 minutes or until the edges of the dough has turned light brown colour.

To make the filling:
8) Get ready a flat baking pan, large enough to spread the peanuts (I used a 10-in baking pan). Alternatively, use a silicon mat if you have one.
9) Pour the sugar and water into a pot, cook over medium heat. Using a long wooden spoon, stir the mixture until the sugar has dissolved.
10) Continue to cook without stirring. When sugar crystallised around the side of the pot, wash it down with a pastry brush dipped in cold water.
11) When it starts to colour, pour in the peanuts and start stirring immediately. Make sure that all peanuts are coated with sugar.
12) Within a few minutes, the peanuts tur white, keep stirring until it turns back into caramel.
13) When the peanuts has turned into a nice amber colour, remove from heat. Spread the peanuts on the pan and cool to room temperature.
14) When the peanuts are cooled enough to be handled by hands, separate the nuts. Divide the nuts in half. Keep half of the peanuts whole and finely chopped the other half for the topping.
15) Spread the dulce de leche over the pastry base and sprinkle over the whole candied nuts.

To make the topping:
16) Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until it is fully blended into the chocolate.
17) Pour the chocolate mixture over the dulce de leche, then sprinkle over the chopped candied nuts.
18) Keep refrigerated for about 20 minutes to set the topping. Serve.