Thursday, February 23, 2012

Pretzel-Shortbread Bars

Show me a cookie or type of candy with a crunchy, salty ingredient, like pretzels for instance, and I'm sold. When sweet and salty are together in a recipe, I almost always have to try it. These shortbread bars make use of the pretzels in two ways. Rather than just topping the cookie bars with broken pieces of pretzels, ground pretzel crumbs also make up part of the dry ingredients in the dough. I found this recipe in last October's issue of Living magazine, and then I had to take it a step or two further. After making the cookie dough and pressing the broken pretzel pieces into it, I thought some dry roasted, salted peanuts would be at home there as well. Then, after baking, I felt the need to gild the bars with a drizzle of melted chocolate. The salty-sweet flavor thing is a success here, but there's a bonus with the pretzel flavor that was worked into the shortbread with the crumbs. Whether you keep these simple or start adding the extras like I did, these are very worth trying.

The bars were baked in a rectangular tart pan with a removable bottom, and that shape was very easy to cut straight across into pieces. First, some pretzels were pulsed in a food processor until powdery. One half cup of the pretzel powder was added to flour and baking powder for the dry ingredient mix. Then, more pretzels were coarsely chopped in the food processor. Butter and sugar were combined in a mixer, and then an egg yolk was added followed by the dry ingredients and then some of the coarsely chopped pretzels. The dough was pressed into the tart pan and topped with the remaining chopped pretzels which were pressed into the surface. At this point, I added a handful or two of dry roasted peanuts and pressed them into the dough as well. The shortbread baked for about 30 minutes and was left to cool. I melted some bittersweet chocolate and drizzled it over the cooled cookie tart.

Caramel, peanut butter, and cookies all work for me in this arena of mixing salty and sweet. And, I'm sure I'll repeat this topic sooner or later because there's a tart with a pretzel crust I've been meaning to try for years. I might have to start a sub-section in my recipe file just for sweets with pretzels.



27 comments:

  1. Terrific! Those are the kind of bars I am addicted to.

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  2. That just looks so dreamy with the drizzle over the top...a very clever idea too!

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  3. Love it! Good call on taking the recipe a step further. The original recipe almost sounds boring in comparison to your twists. I'm sure these cookies would be right up my alley since, pre-blog, I made the chocolate and pretzel tart that you linked to. I recall it fondly- you should definitely give it a try.

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  4. Yum! I'm with you on the salty-sweet combo, and I'll pretty much put pretzels in anything. These look especially tasty. :)

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  5. Lisa, Yum! Your bars hit all the right notes. And I'm thinking that I could convince myself that they are a healthy-ish snack;) I know my kids would agree!
    -Erin

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  6. I thought I had truly found heaven when I first tried the pretzel M&M's. But these look a million times better.

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  7. Those pretzels look like a really great idea here! Those bars look so yummy.

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  8. ooh, I do love those crunchy topping! They make the plain shortbread so much more interesting!

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  9. What a great recipe! And yes, salty and sweet do go so well together. I love the look of the crunchy topping on your slice. Delicious!

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  10. these are outstanding, lisa! i like the shape you've cut your bars and the components as well, obviously. this is a unique and tasty creation!

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  11. Yep, salty, sweet and buttery. And crunchy. This is a perfect cookie. Maybe, just maybe, a little caramel on top would be awesome too.

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  12. Ooooo! These sweet and salty shortbread bars are a good combination of contrasts in textures and flavors.

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  13. Dear Lisa, These pretzel shortbread cookies are wonderful.
    Thank you for your visit. Blessings my dear, Catherine xo

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  14. I think it's essential to have a strong salt presence in almost every dessert.

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  15. These bars look scrumptious! The addition of a bit of chocolate is a perfect topping to the salty sweet cookies. A delightful dessert!

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  16. Now this is my perfect sweet and salty snack! These are on my MUST make list. Thank you for sharing! {Pinning now}

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  17. Oh. My. God. This looks so delectable. I LOVE sweet and salty desserts like this (I actually prefer to have a strong contrast between the two). Thanks for sharing!

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  18. I think I will bring these into work this week - my coworkers will love me forever!

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  19. I adore the combo of sweet and salty and these bars look addictive! So much flavor and crunch and crumble. Yum!

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  20. Yum Yum Yum! I made muesli bars a few weeks ago with a little bit of a chocolate drizzle. These look incredibly tasty Lisa :) Mourish!

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  21. I suspect my beloved husband would go crazy for these, especially once you drizzled them with melted chocolate... ;-)

    I've been thinking of making some type of energy bar from scratch, but so far just collected a bunch of "recipe possibilities"

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  22. I always like the idea of salty and sweet esp in supposed sweet treats.

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  23. What a delicious cookie bar....adding chocolate was a great idea!

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  24. this salsa looks so, so divine! i'm loving your blog. yum. yum. & yum!

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  25. I am with you, salty and sweet is the ultimate combination. What a delicious, and dangerous treat.

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