Whip it Up Challenge: Week 5

This week is a busy one for us. Mr. J. was on call all weekend and was gone for three hours in the middle of last night; he's working a double tomorrow. Wednesday night we'll be furiously packing only to give up, play Zuma (this is your fair warning: it's addictive!) for an hour, go to bed late, and resume frantically packing on Thursday morning. Thursday we're driving down to Airport City to catch our flight to Seattle via Newark. In retrospect, we should've booked a series of shorter flights instead of one two-hour and one six-hour flight but there's nothing to be done about it now. When we booked the flights, back in...March, I think, we weren't thinking about a squirming crawler/almost-walker who doesn't like to sit still for too long anymore. We were still gazing warmly at our not-yet-crawling Little Goat, playing quietly (for the most part) in one spot (for the most part) on the floor. Hm.

So given all this busyness, I decided to make some sort of desserty type thing we could take on our trip with us. Portable Airport/Airplane 'Supplements'. The recipe is a combination of a kind of blondie recipe topped with copious amounts of Reese's products. A few things about the Reese's: We bought this GIGANTIC bag of Reese's treats for Halloween oh, TWO years ago. We ended up not giving out candy in 2006 because we weren't in our own place yet. Then in 2007 we had all of - wait for it - FIVE (or maybe 6, tops) trick-or-treaters. Tres disappointing. In order to prevent our gourging ourselves on Reece's peanut butter cups, I forced Mr. J. to store them in a grocery bag in the back of his car. That's where they road around for more than a year. We finally brought them inside a few weeks ago and jammed them in the fridge because it was getting too hot to shuttle them around in ol' RubySu (not that we thought of that LAST summer or anything). We decided it was time, we had to use them up. So let me tell you something about two-year old Reece's PB cups - they're lower in fat! It's true!* All the greasy shortening seems to have leaked out and soaked into that piece of cardboard inside the package. Hah!

Therefore, today, I present to you, for the Whip it Up Challenge, Week 5:
Not Really But Sort-of Lower-Fat PB Cup Blondie-ish Squares**
(Sorry, but Blogger isn't letting me upload the picture at the moment.)

Cream together:
1/2 cup butter
scant 1/2 cup sugar
scant 1 cup brown sugar
Add:
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Mix in:
1 3/4 cups white flour
1/2 cup wheat flour (or just use white)
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
8 Reese's PB Cups (or however many you have leftover from Halloween 2006)

Spread batter in a 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes (or until almost done); top with chopped up Reese's PB Cups and bake for 5-7 minutes longer.

The Q & A:

Was the recipe easy to follow? Yeah, it was. I substituted 1/2 cup of the flours with oatmeal and we added the two leftover snack-packs of Reece's Pieces.

...Did it taste good? Not bad. I think the recipe could be improved by a) not baking it quite as long as I did (I adjusted the time in the recipe above) and b) not messing with the flours and adding oatmeal.

Would we make it again? Maybe, maybe not. I love blondies and the PB cups rocked, but I really need to find a better blondie recipe (I'm open to suggestions here, people. Lest I disappoint you too with this rather dud-ish recipe, read on!

This past weekend I tried another new recipe, though not specifically for the Challenge because I already posted about our fabulous pork last week. I tried Yogurt-Marmalade Cake: To DIE For as posted by Pioneer Woman. I don't know that I would go quite so far as to die for it, but it IS like lemony heaven in my mouth and if you don't make it soon, well, then, shame on you for depriving your tastebuds of such excellent lemony goodness!

Make sure to stop by next week because it'll be an extra-special WIU Challenge week for me. Mr. J.'s sister is getting married on the 16th and I'm in charge of the wedding cake. I've made a wedding cake only once before (see here) so that's not the new recipe. The new recipe will be the pastry cream that's going in the top layer of the cake. If it turns out well, it'll be perfect for adding to all kinds of things....like, um, PASTRY. See you then!

* Okay, not really at all, but a girl can dream, right? RIGHT?!
** Yes, that's right, I called them "squares" and you can be darn thankful I didn't go all out and call them "dainties" because I sure could've. Dangit, I'm Canadian and I don't know a single Canadian who actually calls them "bars." "Bars" are where you go to drink or what you're always supposed to set so high, or things you pass to become a filthy-rich lawyer. "Squares," among other things, are sweet little squares of sugary delectability. So there!