Maybe this happens to you.
Maybe it doesn't.
You're invited to a party and as a nice gesture, you bring something along. Being a baker you decide, naturally, to bake something.
So you get to the party, you're wining and dining, loosening up and enjoying yourself. But when people find out you've brought a dessert, they all of the sudden get very interested in you, and what you've brought, what's it called, how you've made it, what's in it, what's the recipe, etc..etc...
The most difficult was when I brought a Bûche de Noël to a Christmas party, which is a fairly complicated affair involving spongecake, chocolate buttercream, soaking syrup, and lots of crackly meringue mushrooms for decoration. Some nutty woman followed me around all night with a pen and note pad, prodding me for recipe details and I spent the whole night trying to avoid her.
But let's say you've been working on recipes all day, or adding recipes to your blog. So you go to a party and maybe you'd rather just not talk about what you've made: After all, don't they know you have a food blog and a couple of cookbooks where they can get all that information?
(And no, I don't have a recipe for Bûche de Noël. But thanks for asking...)
So my technique for throwing 'em off the scent is to make up names for things I've baked that mean nothing, something innocuous that no one can possibly question. I've brought to parties Chocolate Surprise Cake, Mystery Spice Cake and Baked Summertime Fruit Dessert. But you need to be careful since if you pick the wrong name, something like Chocolate Emergency Cake, you'll have to explain the story behind the moniker 'emergency'.
And we can't have that, can we?
Then there's Friendship Bars...
This recipe is a riff from Alice Medrich's book Alice Medrich's Cookie's and Brownies, which (aside from being the most redundant sentances I've ever written) is unfortunately out of print but very much in demand. (What are her publishers thinking? Bring it back!) And I really mean 'unfortunately' since it goes without explanation to anyone who's cooked from one of Alice's books that all her recipes are winners, and I'm especially fond of this one.
These Date and Walnut Bars hold special appeal to me even though they don't have any chocolate in them like most of her other recipes do—though you could easily toss in a handful of chocolate chips. Instead they're packed with lots of healthy (or is that healthful?) dried fruits and nuts, and are one of those great desserts to make when you don't feel like going shopping, since you're likely to have these ingredients on hand. There's no butter either, so they keep for quite some time and could easily to filed under 'low-fat' recipes, so you don't have to feel bad when you polish off the whole pan in one afternoon.
(Er, not that I've done that or anything...)
Recently I've been taken by these tiny dried Armenian peaches I found at my friendly Arab market since it's impossible to find tart dried California apricots here. A few friends, perhaps not so in-the-spirit-of-friendship, nicknamed them Chernobyl peaches. Perhaps I'm just naive, but I've been snacking on them a lot lately and haven't noticed any ill effects—so I'm going to keep using them. But if I no longer feel the need for a nightlight in the dark or I start sprouting a third arm, I'll stop. Probably.
Come to think of it, a third arm could definitely come in handy sometimes. Like it might be good at warding off all those people swarming around, trying to get the recipe out of you.
Friendship Bars
About 16 bars
Feel free to use any friendly combination of dried fruits that strikes your fancy. The dates really do make the recipe, but I've tossed in a scoop of dried sour cherries or cranberries as well with great results. Whatever you do, stick with the quanties below and no one will get hurt.
For all the folks that absolutely feel they have to change things (and you know who you are...) a handful of candied ginger, a few swipes of freshly-grated citrus zest, or some crushed anise seeds might be welcome. For those of you who are gluten-free, I imagine you could substitute another starch for the flour, but otherwise I recommend sticking pretty close to the recipe, since it's pretty perfect just as it is.
6 tablespoons (50 gr) flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (90 gr) packed, light or dark brown sugar
2 cups walnuts, almonds, or pecans (200 gr), toasted and coarsely chopped
1½ cups (170 gr) dates, pitted and quartered
1 cup (170 gr) dried apricot halves (preferably from California)
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Line an 8-inch (20cm) square pan across the bottom and up the sides with two sheets of aluminum foil, making a big criss-cross.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees (160 C) and position the rack in the center of the oven.
In a large bowl, toss together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the brown sugar, walnuts, dates, and apricots. Use your fingers to mix the fruit, separating any pieces sticking together.
Beat the egg and vanilla in a small bowl, then mix with the fruit and nut mixture until everything's coated with the batter. Spread the mixture in the baking pan and press to even it out.
Bake for 35-40 minutes until the batter is golden brown and has pulled away just-slightly from the sides of the pan. Cool the bars in the pan.
Storage: Alice says you can store the bars in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks, but I've never kept them around that long.
Note: I used my Baker's Edge pan, which I've fallen head-over-heels for. Because the pan is larger than the 8-inch pan the recipe calls for, you should make 1½ times the recipe. You can eyeball half an egg by breaking it into a bowl and stir it with a fork. (I have complete faith and just know you can do it.) And instead of driving yourself nuts trying to line this wacky pan with foil, grease the pan lightly instead.
More tips on using the pan can be found at the Baker's Edge web site.
I'm sure that lots of people chase you around at parties David. That's what you get for bringing the sweet stuff. I'm really happy for this recipe. The coming Spring means that my husband will be on 50 mile bike rides several times a week, so I'll need to make him healthy treats to feed his perpetual hunger. Thanks.
Thanks for the recipe, David. I can use up all the dried fruit in my cupboard, while entertaining myself by imagining how you're being chased by women who are keen on your recipes:)
I think I may be the only foodie that doesn't understand the love for the baker's edge pan. It is an intriguing idea, now someone needs to come up with an edgeless brownie pan already :)
As for the recipe leeches, I'm going to have to try your technique in the future :)
Look delicious! Thanks!
However, you may want to fix your "bouche". Buche de Noel is the Christmas log; Bouche de Noel is Christmas Mouth! :OD (I couldn't get the accents to work for some reason, but there should be a circonflexe on the U in Buche and a trema on the E in Noel. And an accent aigu on the e in trema! And a circonflexe on the first E in my name--maybe it's because I'm a Mac-er?)
Mary: He'll certainly appreciate these bars, since they're deliciously packed with nuts and lots and lots of dried fruits (although the people behind him might not be so appreciative...)
Pille: Yes, this is a great recipe for using up odds & ends...enjoy!
Jef: I wasn't sure I'd like the Baker's Edge pan when they sent it to me, thinking it was just another gimmick. But I've come to really like it. Especially for those of us that love crusty edges.
La Rêveuse: Thanks and I corrected you too!
All accents, circumflexes, and symbols have to be in HTML (and bold and italiced text too, then converted to ASCII) hence the infrequent errors I make on the site, not to mention my mangled French, which happens too frequently for me, too.
You can find a good guide here for future reference. It's not a Mac thing, since I'm on a Mac too.
Hmmm... I'm a Blogger blogger, and they work on blogger. (bloggerbloggerblogger) Another new skill to learn. Sigh.
Thanks! :)
I bet this recipe is a winner, especially with a name like this!
I wonder if it's because of the blog and books that the recipe leeches follow you at parties. The possibility of getting "off-the-record" recipes may be much like the thrill of going to a restaurant and getting dishes that aren't on the menu. Thanks for supplying the recipe. Those bars sound awesome--I'm going to be giving them a try (particularly as my own efforts to make lower-fat and lower-sugar treats with healthful ingredients invariably produce what my husband calls "bulletproof cookies").
The name "Friendship Bars" has to go. Show up at the party with a lovely decorated tray of these. Tell your host (loudly, so others will hear) that they are called "Contentious Cookies" or "Belligerent Bars." You can enjoy the party without needing to shake the groupies.
Dude I simply can't STAND when people don't use circumflex over the U when correcting other's French!
Would that be Alice of Alice's Restaurant?
When people follow me with note pads I always get nervous, but when people politely ask I give the recipe. Even when it's long. "Last March I found some cabbage root and simmered it briefly it in a reduced pintade neck stock with sliced new garlic, which was actually dipped into the stock for 7 minutes, precisely. Then after letting it sit for three weeks on the counter, skimming as necessary, I added a 6 month old mother on a lark and used the hand blender to create an emulsion, which I dried to a powder and sprinkled into the duck foot stock that eventually was incorporated into the meurette sauce in which I simmered, briefly, ris de veau. That sauce was then used as a base for the soup that you are tasting tonight." I get nervous because when I get put on the spot sometimes I forget an ingedient or don't explain in full enough for people to understand. I really prefer that people see my recipe in writing, so sometimes I just say I'll blog it.
When I made marshmallows for Valentine's Day and took a box of them to school with me, I got asked like a zillion-trillon times how it's really possible to make these at home. I finally managed to explain it in only some words (which was a master development) and decided to just add the recipe to my blog. That's the feeling of surrender:D
The edgeless pan is exceedingly easy to implement. All you need to do is to make sure the place where the right edge would've been connects to the place where the left edge would've been - and the same is true with top / bottom edges. The topological body that satisfies this requirement (or, rather, the simplest body - there's more than one, generally speaking, even if we stick to the old boring three dimensional topology) is a sphere. So imagine this metallic round thing that you slather all around with batter, and then, I guess, suspend in artificial zero gravity and rotate, so your batter wouldn't drip down from it (as long as you don't rotate it too fast, because the centrifugal force would take over at a certain speed and you'll get Brownie Splatters all over the inside of your expensive zero-gravity oven). Oh, also you will need a source of heat in the middle of this sphere, lest your batter will get baked on top and stay raw inside. Since you can't have any wires leading into this sphere (if you do, there will be an edge where the wire connects to the sphere!), the elementary solution is a small nuclear micropile inside this pan.
See, easy. Less effort than, um, converting Celsius into Fahrenheit. Piece'a'cake.
Bellaviva.com is a California business that sells wonderful dried fruits. I especially like the dried pears diced in oatmeal nut cookies in place of raisins. Bellaviva also sells dried white peaches, which I've never found anywhere else. I don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but they have great stuff that would be especially good in the Friendship Bars.
Will you be my friendship bar?
I love these bars. I made them for Christmas once and called them "fruitcake bars." Horrible name...I had to convince my brother that they were nothing like those prepackaged bricks. Once people tried them, they couldn't stop though.
These look like just the sort of cookies I love. And since I'm getting ready to soak a ton of dried fruit in rum and port for making Black Cake at Christmas, this is the perfect thing to make with the extra odd bits of fruit.
David, I think people are following you around at parties because you're a pastry guy. A famous pastry guy. A famous foreign pastry guy. Either that or they're ogling your butt!
Baked these up this morning. And just as you predicted, they were so good that after scarfing down a quarter of the pan, my roommate immediately began grilling me for the recipe.
David, I love you again! These look fabulous, and they can easily be gluten-free. I'd suggest sorghum flour or sweet rice flour for their properties here. Yippee! Another David recipe to try.
I just made these, and they are so very tasty. Also, my house smells wonderful. I was having chilli for dinner, so I managed not to scarf down the whole batch, and I look forward to having them as a tea-time sanck throughout the week. It's important to have snacks with tea, I've found. Thank you!
Thanks for this recipe. I tried it over the weekend for my young children and it was quite the hit. They preferred the bars still warm from the oven, but what few made it to the next day were just as good. I enjoyed having a snack that was healthy, tasty and didn't involve copious amounts of white sugar and corn syrup. Thanks again.
Am so glad you're all enjoying the recipe. It's one of my absolute favorites. It's simple to make, no fuss and so zany ingredients, and they're good for you. What more could you want?
If you want more, Alice Medrich's books are uniformily excellent and I'm a big fan of her Vermouth and Sweet Potato Cake and Buttermilk Pound Cake in her book Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Baking.
David, I came across your recipe for friendship bars on topgrubs.com on Friday and tried your recipe yesterday and I have to tell you how incredible they turned out. And you are dead on about the bars not lasting too long, the family cleaned me out, next time I'm doubling the recipe for sure
Thank you for sharing that fantastic recipe. Those who wouldn't ordinarily look at dried fruit, let alone eat it, ate a quarter of the batch, and didn't want to give away any to "friends"!