Wednesday, January 14, 2009

WFMW--Condensed Milk Tip

This is a tip leftover from holiday baking, and wow, do I ever feel like I have wandered in to the land of the housewife with this one!

As someone who is tentative at best (and truly awful at worst) in the kitchen, I've been making five-layer bars (recipe below) for a few years now for cookie swaps. You'd think I'd have these perfected, but you'd be wrong. But this time, I did something I've never done before that was a huge help in pouring the condensed milk over everything. In the past, it would come out gloppy and uneven and was impossible to spread., and it really is the top "glue" keeping the cookies together.

In my last round of cookie baking, due to sheer laziness (and being interrupted while opening the can), I stopped opening the can about 80% of the way around and just picked it up and started pouring from there.

Well, now I'm assuming everyone but me knew that this is standard practice because the stuff came out in a gorgeous thin ribbon that made it super-easy to cover the whole thing with no gloppiness or lost areas with the layers falling out due to lack of stick. And for my last batches of Christmas cookies this year, that worked for me!

Do you want something that is actually useful more than twice a year? Try Shannon's blog, full of the best tips on the web. Happy 2009 to all!

MAGIC COOKIE BARS

1 1/2 c. Kellogg's Corn Flake Crumbs
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter, melted
1 c. walnuts, chopped
1 c. (6 oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 c. butterscotch chips
1 1/3 c. flaked coconut
1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk

Measure corn flake crumbs, sugar and butter into 13x9x2 inch baking pan; mix thoroughly. With back of wooden spoon press mixture in bottom of pan to form crust. Sprinkle nuts over crust. Scatter morsels over nuts. Sprinkle coconut over morsels. Pour condensed milk over coconut. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until lightly browned around edges. Cool and cut into bars.

Note: you can also use graham cracker crumbs for the crust, in which case, omit the sugar.

3 comments:

TuTu's Bliss said...

yummy! Thanks. I wish you had a follow me button if you are going to keep dishing out good recipes

brandy101 said...

I never had the glob problem b/c we never used a can opener - always used a bottle-opener - the kin that poked a small v-shaped hole on a side (and then another hole on the other so it can *drain*

But I *love * that you use corn flakes instead of graham crackers.

The Prudent Homemaker said...

Do you have the kind of can opener that just opens the little "triangles" on a can? Just put two triangular holes on the top of the can (one for air) and pour out the other side! You won't risk cutting your fingers, either.

I forgot all about using this can opener like that until I saw my husband open the evaporated milk that way the other day and pour it out. It's a pretty old-fashioned way of doing it, and I forgot how nice it is that way!