Today's recipe is for Betty Crocker Praline Bars, which are basically Blondies but maybe definitely a little chewier and sweeter. They're far from being cakey and they actually look a bit like praline candy before being baked.
Betty Crocker Dinner for Two Praline Bars
The recipe is originally from Betty Crocker's Dinner for Two, one of the few cookbooks we owned when I was a small child. I used to look at the photos, and when I learned to read this was the first recipe I made.
As a kid I used vegetable oil and had good results, so I made a batch this week with vegetable oil for old times' sake. The nice thing about the oil version is the bars are extremely chewy. They taste good with the vegetable oil, but I knew they'd taste better with butter so I made a second batch with melted Plugra, a European style butter. The butter Praline Bars were even better -- especially topped with a little flaky sea salt.
Update!
The original version calls for ¼ cup shortening or salad oil and makes very chewy bars. I've been using butter instead and trying to decide if I prefer 4 tablespoons or 5 tablespoons. With 5 tablespoons, the bars are softer but with 4 tablespoons they are chewier. I think I prefer the chewier version so I've changed it back to 4.
Recipe
Betty Crocker Praline Bars
Ingredients
- Butter for greasing pan
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter or vegetable oil or shortening (56 grams)
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar (200 grams)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup flour (97 grams)
- ⅔ cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts or pecans
- Flaky sea salt optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Rub an 8 inch glass baking pan (or metal) with butter.
- Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of brown sugar until well blended. Sugar should be shiny from the heat of the butter. If you are using vegetable oil, just mix the oil and sugar.
- Stir in the room temperature egg and vanilla, then stir in the baking powder and the salt. Add the flour and stir until blended, then stir in the nuts.
- Scrape into pan. If desired, sprinkle sea salt flakes over the top.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until bars appear set.
- Let cool completely and cut into squares or if you prefer, cut while warm.
Anna says
Hi Karen,
Believe it or not I've never tried doubling the recipe. I think it would work, but if you happen to have two 8-inch square pans, you might want to just double the recipe and use two pans so that you'll get more edge pieces. But a 9x13 pan should work too. The bake time might be slightly longer or shorter, but you'll be able to tell. These are hard to mess up.
Karen says
I made these bars years ago when I received the Dinner For Two cookbook as a wedding gift. I would like to make these in a 9x13 pan. Would I just double the recipe?
Anna says
Matt, I wouldn't advise doing that. The bars wouldn't be quite the same. You may want to search around for some sort of honey bars type recipe, though. I'm sure one exists.
Matt says
Can I substitute the sugar for honey instead? Thank you~
Sue says
These look and sound so good! I know I would love them!
Sonya says
Mmmmmm! The sea salt sounds delicious too!