My son is one of those kids who hates raisins. I think it is (at least in part) because they look like chocolate chips, but they aren’t.
So this week we’re tasting Chocolate Raisin Bars… to see if he notices. (Second week in a row of sneaky raisin desserts!)
AuthorRetroRuth
From Safeway
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Preheat oven to 375°F.
In small saucepan, combine raisins and water; bring to boil. Remove from heat and stir in shortening; cool at room temperature (about 10 minutes). Transfer to large bowl; stir in sugar and egg.
In small bowl, combine flour, soda, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and cloves. Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture. Stir in walnuts.
Spread in greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan. Sprinkled with chocolate chips. Bake 2 minutes. Remove from oven and swirl with knife to marbleize chocolate. Bake at 375°F. for 15 minutes.
Cool and cut into 2x1-1/2" bars. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired.
Yield: 50 bars
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F.
In small saucepan, combine raisins and water; bring to boil. Remove from heat and stir in shortening; cool at room temperature (about 10 minutes). Transfer to large bowl; stir in sugar and egg.
In small bowl, combine flour, soda, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and cloves. Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture. Stir in walnuts.
Spread in greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan. Sprinkled with chocolate chips. Bake 2 minutes. Remove from oven and swirl with knife to marbleize chocolate. Bake at 375°F. for 15 minutes.
Cool and cut into 2x1-1/2" bars. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired.
Yield: 50 bars
Notes
One of the things I found most interesting about this recipe was the wide range of brand-name ingredients — most of which I’d never heard of.
Turns out they’re all (except Nestlé, of course) Safeway’s store brands from the mid-century.
(And incidentally, if you’re melting shortening in boiling water, don’t let the pot sit in the sink unwashed. It gets a film of fat all over it that’s a pain to wash off.)
So I stopped Googling and concentrated on the recipe, wondering why we were adding a bunch of spice cake mixes to cookies. This might be really raisin-centric after all.
The batter tasted terrific, though.
After only two minutes, I didn’t expect much melting. But even though the chocolate chips looked intact, they mushed and swirled perfectly.
This needed nearly 40 minutes to bake, though. I only had smaller pans than the recipe called for, and the deeper (almost brownie-sized) result took forever and was still very soft and gooey afterwards.
The original intent of this post was to have a shot of raisin-hating boy tasting and see if he noticed anything. Instead, he and his friend ran into the room, screamed “BROWNIES!”, grabbed two each, and ran away to throw sticks at each other in the front yard before I could grab my camera.
Since nobody came back in to throw sticks at me, I’m assuming they didn’t notice the raisins.
I sat Buzz down on the couch and handed him one instead.
“Wow, these are great brownies.”
“They’re raisin bars, actually.”
“Really?!?” He took another bite. “Can’t tell. Wow, these are good.”
Verdict: Gooey and good.
From his tasting notes:
Couldn’t taste any raisins. The swirling gave it a more complex flavor and it was extremely gooey and good. Interesting spice undertone played well with the chocolate.
I wonder if you sat your son down in a quiet room with no distractions and conducted the taste test, if he would have noticed the raisin then? 😀
I would never have noticed the raisins if I hadn’t known they were in there. They were almost completely integrated into the texture.
I’d love an update. Did they firm up once fully cooled? I love raisin bars but have never tried them with chocolate.
They were still pretty soft when cooled — think of very fudgey brownies. Bake longer if you like your bars (or brownies) more dry and cakey… or use a flatter pan.
I asked him this afternoon if he had noticed the raisins. He looked thoughtful for a moment and said no, then he asked if he could have another brownie yet. (So we’ve finally found a way to feed him raisins… bury them in cake and chocolate!)
I started to preheat the oven before remembering that I used up all of chocolate chips the last time I baked. To the grocery store!