Chocolate Raspberry Bars

It’s the time of year when I start thinking about what I hope to bake for Christmas, but there is still some time to go before I start my Christmas baking. I always hope to do a lot of fall baking, but it seems like this year I’ve had no time, which is frustrating. I haven’t done any of my normal apple/caramel/spice cookies. It’s not that I haven’t found any of those fall recipes, I just haven’t got to them. It seems like a theme lately, oh well.

Ages ago I made a chocolate raspberry bar, that I also think had white chocolate. I don’t remember a lot about them, just that once the chocolate set they were impossible to cut. What a thing to remember! That was long before I had a blog, so I’m not even sure where that recipe was from. That’s one nice thing about keeping up my blog, it serves as a good record of what I’ve baked and where the recipes came from.

I was able to use my new food processor for this recipe. The one I used to use finally broke, but it was from 1980 so it lived a good life. I had picked up a new one this summer and finally got it out of the box. The food processor makes quick work of making the crumb mixture, but you could also use a stand mixer. The chocolate and sweetened condensed milk is a nice layer, but is fairly sweet. Make sure that you use seedless jam, as the seeds would really detract from these bars. You could try other flavors of jam/preserves, as otherwise the components of this recipe provide a good base.

Chocolate Raspberry Bars

2 cups flour

½ cup packed brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup cold butter, but into pieces

14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups chocolate chips, divided

⅔ cup seedless raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In the bowl of a large food processor, add the flour, brown sugar, salt, and butter. Pulse the food processor until the mixture becomes crumbly and sticks together when pressed. Reserve 1-1/2 cups of the crumb mixture; spread the remaining crumb mixture evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan.

Bake for 12 minutes. While the bottom crust bakes, make the topping. In a small saucepan, combine the sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Heat the mixture on low, stirring constantly, until smooth.

Once the crust has come out of the oven, spread the chocolate/condensed milk over the bottom layer. Top with the remaining crumb mixture. Drop the raspberry jam evenly over the crumbs, and the top with the remaining chocolate chips.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until set. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Dear Crissy