7 Layer Bars

The only redeeming quality of jet lag is that it can turn even the most stalwart of morning sleepers (i.e., me) into early morning risers.  Don't get me wrong; I am no longer a sleep-until-noon kind of person, but I can still manage to sleep in until 8 (or occasionally 9 am!) on a weekend and historically have been known to require 3 alarms to get up.  Yesterday morning, jet lag got the better of me and I had my feet on the floor at 4:57 am, was sending emails by 5:20 am, and Scott and I were traipsing about in the wet grass of the backyard to measure the distance for our new clothesline before the first rays of the sun sent their silvery fingers of light over the horizon .

It may be completely obvious, particularly to the lucky "morning people" out there, but if you get up at 5 am on a Saturday, you can get an incredible number of things done in the day!  Making 7 Layer Bars was just one of the things I did.  It was great to be back in the kitchen after a 2 week hiatus and 7 Layer Bars are so simple, even a person with jet lag can easily assemble them.

So, perhaps you are wondering why Scott and I have jet lag?  We just got back from a 2-week vacation in Malaysia and Singapore!  We spent most of our time in Malaysia, with a short trip to Singapore tacked on the end.  It was, perhaps, one of the best international vacations I've ever had.  The food was amazing, the people were friendly, and the sights were fascinating.  I suppose what made the vacation so perfect was that I was able to live completely in the moment.  We had no set plans, aside from some hotel/guest house reservations, and we flitted from city to countryside to city to beach to city at what felt like a leisurely pace.  Normally, I struggle at bit on vacation to relax and forget about the stuff that is waiting for me when I return.  This trip was different.  I didn't think about work, what needed to be done at home, blogging, or even baking.  Scott and I were there together and that was enough.

We can discuss the details of the vacation later, including our run-in with a very sneaky monkey.  Right now, I want to draw your attention to these delicious 7 Layer Bars.  Like I mentioned earlier, these bars are so simple.  Essentially you just sprinkle some things in a pan and slide it into the oven.  My mom has been making these for forever, and I've always loved eating them, particularly when they are frozen.  The real reason why I chose these for my first foray back into the kitchen was that Sharon was coming for dinner!  (Yay!)  We hadn't seen Sharon for ages; she was living in a tent in South Sudan for over a year working to eradicate guinea worm.  It sounded like challenging work, and I totally admire her for it.  Sharon really likes 7 Layer Bars (I once had my mom send her a pan of them for her birthday because I was out of the country and couldn't make them myself), and it seemed a perfect fit to make them to celebrate seeing her again.  So, there you have it; these bars and I have a history, and as soon as you taste them, I think you'll understand why.  Happy baking! 

Notes:
I generally use walnuts for these cookies, but pecans work well too.  I know the title of these is 7 Layer Bars, but there are really only 6 layers/ingredients.  That's because we (my Mom and I) think that butterscotch chips are cloyingly sweet so we always leave them out. 6 Layer Bars just doesn't have the same ring to it, so we left the name alone.  There are two ways to do the crust:  you can pour in the butter in the pan, evenly distribute it, and then sprinkle the crumbs on top; or you can mix them together and then press them in (which kind of turns these into 5 Layer Bars).  I like to mix them together and press them in because I find it more satisfying, but either way will work.  Baking these in a foil-lined pan helps you to easily extract and cut the bars.  These cookies freeze really well, and I shamelessly eat them straight from the freezer. 

Obviously, this is an adaptation of a recipe my mom gave me.  Recipes for this type of bar cookie abound, but I think she originally got the recipe from an Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk label.

Ingredients:
½ cup (1 stick; 113 g) unsalted butter, melted
1½ cups (142 g) crushed graham crackers
14 ounces (396 g) sweetened condensed milk
1⅓ cups (189 g) dark chocolate chunks or chips
1⅓ cups (108 g) sweetened coconut
1⅓ cups (142 g) chopped nuts

Yields about 60 bars, depending on how you cut them.

Mix, Press, Pour, Sprinkle, Press, Bake:
Set a rack at the middle level of the oven, and preheat to 350°F.  Line an 9x13-inch pan with foil, leaving a two-inch overhang on two opposite sides.  Mix together the melted butter and crushed graham crackers, and press into the pan.  Pour the sweetened condensed milk evenly over the crumb layer.  Evenly sprinkle first the chocolate chips, then the coconut, and finally the chopped nuts over top of the sweetened condensed milk.  Using clean hands, gingerly press down on top of the bars to compact everything together.  Don't press too hard, or the sweetened condensed milk will ooze up.  Bake the bars at 350°F for 25-30 minutes or until the top is light golden brown.  Allow the cookie to fully cool, and use the foil overhang to lift the large bar out of the pan and onto a large cutting board.  Use a sharp knife to cut the large bar into squares, taking care that all of the foil is removed from each square.  Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the freezer.

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