Mama Kat Thursday: Pinterest Recipe Rescue

Actually, I found this recipe and pinned it on Pinterest myself, which to me is close enough. I was interested in it because it was a no-bake cookie bar.

A pan of No-Bake Rocky Road Bars sounded delicious! And easy.

Well as it turns out, it wasn't quite so easy. Nor did it work as expected. There was too much graham cracker crumb and not enough evaporated milk called for in the recipe. 

The picture attached to recipe

Plus, the pic attached to the recipe wasn't even the correct one.

This is it. A fancy 3-layer bar.

(And there's even coconut on top!)

How the bars should look

This pic is what the bars should look like, since you're not layering anything, but just clumping all the ingredients together in a bowl, then pressing them into a pan!

Mine didn't come out looking like this--not quite. A mere 3/4 cup of evaporated milk mixed into 12oz of melted chocolate chips DID NOT make the chocolate thin enough to adequately saturated 4 cups of graham cracker crumbs & other sundry ingredients. As a result, I found my bars shattering when I cut them and tons of loose, dry graham crumbs.

Also, while combining the canned evaporated milk with hot melted chocolate, I found the temp difference between room temperature can and hot, melted chocolate seize up.

Nowhere did the directions even suggest it was advisable to warm up the milk BEFORE adding it to warm melted chocolate!  Of course, I didn't figure this out until half-way through adding the milk. So warming that milk up is a #1 recommendation!

Luckily, I was able to save the bars by drizzling a little extra evaporated milk over the top and throwing the pan into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes to cause the chocolate and marshmellows to melt enough to moisturize all the crumbs!
But, because it was hot and gooey, I couldn't take it up to the Bible Study on base as originally planned.

After they cooled off again, the bars looked as they ought to.

So, I considered recipe is worth salvaging with a few adjustments, which I'll include here, such as slightly less crumb and a little more evaporated milk to make the chocolate a little thinner.

No Bake Rocky Road Bars

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

2 cups mini marshmallows

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 cup chopped nuts

1 1/4 cups evaporated milk 

1 12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients: crumbs, marshmallows, confectioners sugar & nuts.

Pour choc. chips into a separate microwavable bowl and melt in microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring occasionally until completely melted. Pour evaporated milk into something you can use to also warm it up in microwave before adding it to the chocolate. Once warm, add milk gradually, stirring in until chocolate is smooth and milk is mixed in well.
Pour chocolate mix into bowl of dry ingredients and toss together very thoroughly till every crumb is coated with chocolate. (You don't want any dry crumb spots!) 

Pour bar mix into a greased 9 x 13, then press and pat it down with your hands until it is evenly distributed in pan. Refrigerate 2 hours before cutting and serving.

 (Slightly damp hands will help keep mix from sticking)

****
Once the bars are cold and solid, they're a bear to cut, let me tell you, but having tasted my rescued batch---totally worth it!

I'm going to serve the bars with ice cream to our Sunday night group this week!

How did you save your last recipe disaster?

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