Fruit Bars

The bakery at the school where I used to work would make these Fruit Bar cookies from time to time. They taste something like the Archway Fruit Bars that we used to get when I was a child up in Ohio. The recipe contains honey and molasses which help to keep them moist and tender. They keep for quite a while and would be a good cookie to send in a care package. The most unusual aspect of this recipe is that it calls for cake crumbs as one of the ingredients. You can use leftover cake or you can make a Jiffy mix or use a recipe for a one layer cake such as The Dinette Cake in some Betty Crocker cookbooks. A one layer yellow cake will make enough for two batches of these cookies. I make the cake and crumble it into a ziplock bag and store it in the freezer until time to make the Fruit Bars. The recipe may seem a bit unusual, but it is well worth the trouble--these are addictive!

Fruit Bars

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup shortening
2 tsps. baking soda
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup water
2 2/3 cup cake crumbs
1 1/3 cup raisins
4 3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 tsps. ground cloves
2 tsps. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice

Cream sugars, shortening, and soda. Add egg, molasses, honey, and water. Blend. Add cake crumbs and raisins. Blend. Add spices and flour. (You may need to stir in part of the flour by hand depending on your mixer.)

Divide dough into five parts and pat each piece of dough into a strip the length of the cookie sheet. Bake about 15 mins. at 350 degrees. Ice with the following glaze and cut into pieces when icing has set.

Glaze
2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup milk or cream
2 Tbsps. soft butter
Combine all ingredients and beat until well blended. Add more milk or cream if necessary to thin to glaze consistency. Spread on top of cookies.(I use my fingertips for this.)

Here are some of the bars iced and ready to be cut:

I hope you will try them sometime. Do you have a favorite cookie memory?

Becka

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