Heavenly Hash Bars

A buttery, crunchy shortbread cookie topped with creamy dark fudge, jam-packed with marshmallow and toasted pecans… now THAT’S our idea of what to do with a chunk of dark chocolate!

Yield: 2 dozen bars

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/3 cups (9 3/4 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Topping

• 3 cups (18 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces) heavy cream
• 1 cup (3 3/4 ounces) toasted diced pecans
• 3 cups (half a 10.5 ounce package) mini marshmallows

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan, or line with parchment and grease the parchment.

Crust

1. In a medium size bowl, beat together the butter, salt, sugar and vanilla extract, 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.
2. 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.
3. Prick the dough all over with a fork; this will keep it from bubbling up as it bakes.
4. Bake the crust for 35 to 40 minutes, until it’s golden brown around the edges and beginning to brown on the top.
5. Remove it from the oven, and loosen the edges with a heat-resistant plastic knife or a table knife.
6. Make the topping while the shortbread begins to cool.

Topping

1. Place the chocolate and cream in a microwave-safe bowl, or in a saucepan.
2. Heat in the microwave, or over low heat on a burner, until the cream is steaming and barely beginning to form bubbles.
3. 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 until it’s very smooth. If all the chocolate doesn’t seem melted, reheat very briefly, and keep stirring.
4. Spread the warm chocolate atop the cookie crust.
5. Sprinkle with the marshmallows, then the pecans.
6. 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 until they’re cool the bottom crust is more difficult to cut.
7. Cover the pan, and place the bars in the refrigerator for about an hour, to set the chocolate.
8. Remove from the fridge, and use a spatula to transfer the bars from the pan to a serving plate.

Attribution

Recipe and photo used with permission from: King Arthur Flour