Heavenly Hash Bars
Ready In: 2 hrs
Yields: 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3⁄4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1⁄3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Topping
- 3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or 3 cups chopped dark chocolate
- 3⁄4 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup toasted diced pecans
- 3 cups half a 10 . 5-ounce package mini marshmallows
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 300°F
- Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan, or line with parchment and grease the parchment.
- To make the crust:
- In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter, salt, sugar, and vanilla, then beat in the flour.
- The dough will seem very dry, and won’t seem to want to become cohesive at first. Just keep beating, and it’ll eventually come together.
- Press the dough into the prepared pan, smoothing the surface with your fingers or a mini rolling pin (pastry roller).
- The dough will feel stiff, but just keep pressing on it until you’ve covered the bottom of the pan.
- Prick the dough all over with a fork; this will keep it from bubbling up as it bakes.
- Bake the crust for 35 to 40 minutes, until it’s golden brown around the edges and beginning to brown on the top.
- Remove it from the oven, and loosen the edges with a heat-resistant plastic knife or a table knife.
- Make the topping while the shortbread begins to cool.
- To make the topping:
- Place the chocolate and cream in a microwave-safe bowl, or in a saucepan.
- Heat in the microwave, or over low heat on a burner, till the cream is steaming and barely beginning to form bubbles.
- Remove from the heat, and stir.
- The chocolate will gradually form a lump in the center of the bowl, then will start to expand as it absorbs the cream.
- Eventually the chocolate and cream will become one; keep stirring till it’s very smooth.
- If all the chocolate doesn’t seem melted, reheat very briefly, and keep stirring.
- Spread the warm chocolate atop the cookie crust.
- Sprinkle with the marshmallows, then the pecans.
- Immediately use a knife, or a baker’s bench knife, to cut the bars into squares.
- You’ll find it useful to run the knife under hot water and wipe it off every several cuts, to keep drag to a minimum.
- The reason you’re cutting these bars immediately (admittedly, a somewhat messy proposition), is that if you wait till they’re cool the bottom crust is more difficult to cut.
- Cover the pan, and place the bars in the refrigerator for about an hour, to set the chocolate.
- Remove from the fridge, and use a spatula to transfer the bars from the pan to a serving plate.
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