Bar Ingredients:
- ½ cup shortening
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 2 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 2 ¼ teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- 1 teaspoon soda
- 1 cup raisins
- ½ cup molasses
- ½ cup hot water
Frosting Ingredients:
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon white corn syrup
- Hot milk
Directions:
For the bars: Cream the shortening, sugar, and salt. Add the egg and beat until fluffy. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda, and add to the wet ingredients. Add raisins, molasses, and hot water. Spread in a greased 12 inch-by-14 inch pan and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until done. (About 25 minutes.) Frost while still hot.
For the frosting: Mix sugar and corn syrup with enough hot milk to make a thin frosting.
Review:
The weather in the Midwest is finally beginning to cool, so I searched through the archives to find a perfect fall treat and stumbled upon this spice bar recipe in the Elizabeth Waters Cookbook, compiled in 1955. As I’m not a fan of things with a million steps, the fact that this entire recipe and instructions fit on half a page of paper greatly appealed to me.
Mixing the ingredients, I realized that maybe having a little bit more instruction would’ve been helpful. Creaming together the shortening, sugar, and salt was easy, but dumping in the dry ingredients quickly put my strength to the test. Halfway through, I realized a better way is to mix in the dry ingredients slowly and add some hot water to help mix it all together. The recipe also didn’t mention how hot the water should be, so I guessed and had it at coffee-brewing temperature.
When the bar mixture came together, I plopped it into the oven for the 25 minutes the recipe recommended. I’d recommend putting it in for closer to 30 minutes, unless you want some barely cooked batter in the middle. When I took the bars out of the oven, I threw together the “frosting,” which I think should really be called a glaze, given its final appearance. The recipe remained vague about how much milk to use; pour it into the sugar and syrup mixture slowly, as it will loosen the frosting up quickly.
The final result was truly something that I would’ve expected to get from a bakery or coffee shop during fall season. The Elizabeth Waters dining hall staff would’ve made a killing off of this bar recipe; fall crowds clamor for spiced everything the moment a leaf changes color. My fellow taste-testers agreed, and in no time the batch was gone. The highest compliment was when one asked for the recipe to make it themselves.
So if you have a desire to make a baked creation to satisfy your sweet tooth, I recommend this one. And if you can find chopped nuts that don’t cost you a kidney during this holiday season, you can sprinkle those on top to get an extra texture.
