I was so sorry I've missed the sour cream pecan cookies last week, that I definately had to contribute something to this week's challenge over at Tuesdays with Dorie: Snickery Squares from the famous "Baking from my home to yours" by Dorie Greenspan.

The crust was easy to make. The great problem with the recipe was: It's almost impossible to get dulce de leche here in Germany. So I prepared a caramel sauce with salted butter and mascarpone. I always use Trish Deseine's recipe for caramel. So I did this time. That was a bit time consuming. Caramelizing the peanuts wasn't a problem, they turned out golden, crunchy and a bit salty. Delicious. The chocolate topping was difficult for me because I forgot to buy some more chocolate so that I ended up with only half of the amount of chocolate.

A lot of work, but I had some nice snickery bars. With dulce de leche it would have been much easier. Without it it's too much work for something that's a moment on your lips and a lifetime on your hips ;-)

And here's the recipe:

========== REZKONV-Rezept - RezkonvSuite v1.2

Titel: Snickery Squares
Kategorien: Sweet, Chocolate, Peanuts
Menge: 16 Portionen

========================= FOR THE CRUST =========================
1 Tasse All-purpose flour
1/4 Tasse Sugar
2 Essl. Powdered sugar
1/4 Teel. Salt
120 Gramm Unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and
-- chilled
1 gro?. Egg yolk, lightly beaten

======================== FOR THE FILLING ========================
1/2 Tasse Sugar
3 Essl. Water
1 1/2 Tassen Salted peanuts
About 1 ? cups store-bought dulce de leche

======================== FOR THE TOPPING ========================
210 Gramm Bittersweet, coarsely chopped
60 Gramm Unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces, at room
-- temperature
Quelle: Dorie Greenspan - Baking form my home to
-- yours

============================ QUELLE ============================
-- Erfasst *RK* 04.03.2008 von
-- http://www.foolforfood.de

Getting Ready:

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 8 inch square pan and put it on a baking sheet.

To Make the Crust:

Toss the flour, sugar, powdered sugar and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Toss in the pieces of cold butter and pulse about 12 times, until the mixture looks like coarse meal.
Pour the yolk over the ingredients and pulse until the dough forms clumps and curds-stop before the dough comes together in a ball. Turn the dough into the buttered pan and gently press it evenly across the bottom of the pan. Prick the dough with a fork and slide the sheet into the oven. Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, or until it takes on just a little color around the edges. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature before filling.

To Make the Filling:

Have a parchment or silicone mat-lined baking sheet at the ready, as well as a long-handled wooden spoon and a medium heavy bottomed saucepan. Put the sugar and water in the saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Keeping the heat fairly high, continue to cook the sugar, without stirring, until it just starts to color. Toss the peanuts and immediately start stirring. Keep stirring, to coat the peanuts with sugar. Within a few minutes, they will be covered with sugar and turn
whitekeep stirring until the sugar turns back into caramel. When the peanuts are coated with a nice deep amber caramel, remove the pan from the heat and turn the nuts out onto the baking sheet., using the wooden spoon to spread them out as best you can. Cool the nuts to room temperature. When they are cool enough to handle, separate the nuts or break them into small pieces. Divide the nuts in half. Keep half of the nuts whole or in biggish pieces for the filling, and finely chop the other half for the topping. Spread the dulce de leche over the shortbread base and sprinkle over the whole candied nuts.

To Make the Topping:

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove chocolate from the heat and gently stir in the butter, stirring until it is fully blended into the chocolate.
Pour the chocolate over the dulce de leche, smoothing it with a long metal icing spatula, then sprinkle over the rest of the peanuts. Slide the pan into the fridge to set the topping, about 20 minutes;
if you'd like to serve the squares cold, keep them refrigerated for at least 3 hours before cutting.

Cut into 16 bars.

=====

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