Put a cookie with a candy bar and make a sweet surprise
Almost every month there comes a holiday that leaves American households with a wondrous overabundance of candy. There are Valentines Day sugar hearts, each labeled with a romantic sentiment – kiss, love, hugs. There often is leftover St. Patrick’s Day coconut candy – the famous Irish potatoes rolled in dark brown cinnamon.
Easter brings jelly beans. And don’t even think about Mother’s Day. That is a holiday overloaded with gilded boxes chock full of fine chocolates or gift-wrapped parcels of walnut-maple fudge. And so it goes: Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s – every month of the year seems to be a sweet one. Making cookie candy bar recipes is a good way to put those extra sweets to good use.
What candies make good cookies?
Cookie candy bar recipes come to the rescue when there is too much of a good thing. Many candies are perfect for enhancing a basic cookie recipe. Candy bars such as Butterfinger and Kit Kat and Clark bars can be crushed or roughly chopped and added to almost any cookie recipe.
The peppermint candy canes left unclaimed at Christmas can be smashed to smithereens and sprinkled on top of one’s favorite sugar cookies before the unbaked cookies are popped into a hot oven. Those pepperminty shards of flavor add color and melt nicely to create a sweet crust on each cookie. They make a cookie candy bar recipe one to remember – and one to bake again and again.
There’s nothing scary about the yellow-and-white triangular confections known as candy corn, when they’re used to make colorful confetti effects in sugar cookie recipes. There usually is lots of candy corn to be had around Halloween. And the candies also come in an orange-and-brown version that intimates a taste of chocolate. Add some olde-timey, retro candies to your cookie candy bar recipes for truly intense taste.
Cookie candy bar recipes featuring candy corn are made by roughly chopping the candies and mixing them into any basic cookie recipe. The confetti effect is achieved when the candies melt as the cookies are baking. Each little chunk leaves a trace of color. They also can be sliced and the slices used to decorate the center or edges of each cookie before it goes onto the baking sheet.
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Leave no nut unturned
Added flavor and texture can be incorporated into any basic cookie recipe by using leftover candies that include nuts. Chocolate covered peanuts and chocolate covered almonds make tasty additives. Macadamia nuts come in chocolate covered varieties. Any chocolate covered nut is delicious on its own but when added to a cookie candy bar recipe a nut becomes a thing of beauty.
Cookie candy bar recipes that incorporate peanuts in nougat also are delicious. One popular peanut candy is Payday. It is a log of salted peanuts surrounding a core of nougat. That candy, finely chopped, can be added to almost any cookie recipe to make a flavorful treat. Other cookie candy bar recipes using Payday candy bars may incorporate chopped crystallized fruits such as lemons and limes and cherries. The addition of the sweet fruits enables one to make several versions of the same recipe.
Melt in your cookie; not in your mouth
There is always a danger when making cookie candy bar recipes that the intended candies won’t make it to their final destination, the oven. Some candies, such as M&Ms and Peanut M&Ms, have a tendency to disappear on their way to the mixing bowl. No evidence is left behind, for M&Ms melt in one’s mouth, not in the hands.
The identity of the candy thief rarely is discovered unless the accused undergoes a breath test and comes up positive for traces of candy-coated chocolate aroma. Nevertheless, the inclusion of M&Ms into cookie candy bar recipes is guaranteed to have folks clamoring for more. Cookie candy bar recipes featuring M&Ms will never go out of style. And today, cleanup is easy thanks to flexible silicone bakeware.
But for variety, try crushing a handful of Hershey’s Reese’s Pieces – bits of peanut butter encased in a crisp sugar shell. The flavor is intoxicating. And the cookie candy bar recipes made from peanut butter bits will be requested over and over again.
According to the manufacturers, Reese’s Pieces were introduced in 1978 but became world renowned when they were featured as E.T.’s favored candy in the movie, E.T. The Extra-terrestrial. Today, they can be enjoyed in cookie candy bar recipes – or by the handful, straight out of the bag. And you don’t have to call home for permission to bake some wonderful cookie candy bar recipes of your own.