Monday, February 18, 2008

hello dollies- revisited!

Remember Hello Dollies? The wonderful cavity-maker layer bars with chocolate chips, graham cracker crust and coconut?
My friend Mary makes me some every Christmas, and they are definitely favorites! Well, yesterday I had the hankering for some cookies, but my oven has been acting up, so I needed a sweet recipe to do in our trusty toaster oven (I love my toaster oven).
I settled on Hello Dollies, but one problem- what to substitute for the graham cracker crumbs? A little searching on the web revealed some great suggestions: substitute gluten free cookies ( any kind); use a flour mixture with butter and sugar... well, I did a bit of a hybrid!
I often use GF cereal in place of breadcrumbs for breading meats, so I usually have some on hand. I also recently picked up some organic coconut flour, which I have been meaning to experiment with.

My Graham Cracker Base Substitution:
1/3 cup coconut flour
1/3 cup crushed cereal ( I used Nature's Path Mesa Sunrise: Flakes of flax, corn, and amaranth.)
(place cereal in small ziplock bag and crush with rolling pin or jar)
1/4 cup tapioca flour
2 Tb brown sugar
3 Tb melted butter

This becomes the base of the bar.
Combine ingredients ( mix dry well before adding butter), and press into bottom of greased 9 x 9 pan. ( I use silicon- highly recommended!!)
The rest is oh so easy!
Ingredients:
1 pkg chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 bag dessicated or shredded coconut
(you can also add white choc chips, Skor bar bits, etc or nuts if you like. I prefer to leave the nuts out)
Simply layer the ingredients over the base . Chocolate chips, coconut, (nuts), condensed milk, and place in pre-heated 325* oven (or toaster oven!)
They will take about 25-30 minutes. If doing in toaster oven, rotate halfway through, and you may need to put some tin foil loosely on top if it gets too brown. Let these cool at least 15- 20 minutes before trying to cut- they will need to set.
Enjoy these outrageously sinful bars! Even my kids who "don't like coconut" LOVED these! Happy baking!

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