Congo Bars

Congo Bars: these extreme blondies are loaded with toasted coconut, chopped pecans, chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. A delicious treat for any coconut lover!

These bars are made of total awesome sauce.

True story – For most of my life, I wouldn’t touch any type of food that contained nuts or coconut. Loved the taste, hated the texture. Luckily, I recently overcame my aversion to weird textures. This led me to make tasty, nut filled recipes like this Overnight Chocolate Pecan Pie French Toast Casserole and this Super Fruit and Walnut Quinoa Salad.

And then these Congo Bars came along.

I’ve been on another sweets kick lately. I’ve been limiting how many sweets I eat but I want to bake all of them. Seriously, just last weekend I made these Lemon Coconut Pudding Cakes. And I found three recipes that I want to make this weekend. And that may happen. If it does, there’s gonna be loads of sweet fun at work next week. I always share the treats I make with my co-workers. There’s the main taste tester at home, Ken. And then there’s the taste testers at work. I think they all have a pretty sweet gig, don’t you?

Who wouldn’t want to taste test delicious treats like this on a weekly basis?

I found this recipe in the Cooks Illustrated Baking Book. The only change I made was subbing 1/2 C of the all purpose flour with 1/2 C whole wheat flour. So there’s a little healthiness in there, right?

These bars are GOOD. And even better the day after baking them. The coconut flavor really shines after they sit around for a day. And get this, these bars don’t get crumbly. They stay soft and moist for at least three days. They totally disappeared after three days so if yours stick around longer, let me know if they’re still great at day four or five!

Congo Bars

Yield: 16-20

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Congo Bars: these extreme blondies are loaded with toasted coconut, chopped pecans, chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. A delicious treat for any coconut lover!

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Ingredients

• 1 C all purpose flour
• 1/2 C whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 C packed light brown sugar
• 12 tbsp butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 C pecans, toasted and chopped
• 1/2 C semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 C white chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 C unsweetened shredded coconut, toasted

Instructions

1. Line a 13x9 baking pan with enough foil to fold over the sides. This makes it easy to remove the bars from the pan after baking.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder and salt.
3. In another large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and melted butter. Add the eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Fold in the flour mixture until combined. Then fold in the pecans, coconut, chocolate and white chocolate chips.
4. Pour the batter into the baking pan and smooth out until even.
5. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.
6. Cool on a baking rack for 20-30 minutes and then remove the bars from the pan by pulling up on the foil. Cut into squares. Or rectangles. Some of mine were squares, some were rectangles.

Notes

Adapted from the Cooks Illustrated Baking Book

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