Wish Me Luck Gurls- I'm Making These Coconut Pie Bars NYT Recipe On Either Saturday Or Sunday

That’s just Congo Squares with coconut instead of walnuts!

R1- I never heard of congo squares. They even suggest putting some nuts in there if I like but I think I'm going to try it without nuts this time.

Congo Squares are a popular bar cookie in the South. They have more chocolate and use brown sugar, but are basically the same technique with some ingredient tweaks.

Add white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.

R3- Those sound good.

I was searching for coconut dessert recipes earlier today. This looks perfect.

After they're completed/baked and cooling I will take a photo of them and post it here on this thread- by Sunday at the latest.

I enjoy baking and such. I made a NYT recipe for Spinach Lasagna on Sunday ( made homemade Marinara sauce for it on Saturday). I bought two huge containers of raw spinach at Whole Foods on Friday but by the time I was ready to use them on Sunday - it was major YUCK factor. They got brown and yucky so I was not able to use as nearly as much as I wanted to. Next time I'll buy the spinach the same day I'm going to make the Spinach lasagna- if I ever bother to make it again. I cut the lasagna into six pieces and put them in my large freezer- I have not tried any of it yet.

R3- If I make these coconut square again I will definitely experiment a bit and use brown sugar instead of white. It sounds good with the brown sugar.

LUCK GURLS

I wouldn't add any extra shredded coconut. For looks, I'd stick with the white sugar and the white chocolate / mac nuts sound good (reminds me of the Mrs. Field's cookie). For some reason, milk chocolate sounds better than dark chocolate for this application.

I think almonds also sound good, like an Almond Joy.

R10- One of the women who wrote in under the recipe said it reminded her of Almond Joy. I like the idea of Macadamia nuts. I'm going to put those in. I think the Milk chocolate might make the whole thing too sweet. But in general I like milk chocolate much more than dark chocolate.

I would separate the dough and only add the optional stuff to half. Then you will have some that still show you what the basic cookie is like.

You might like them better that way.

Good luck and please share the results BUT they don’t look very appetizing in the photo.

R13- I'm more concerned with the flavor than the appearance.

R12- The NYT suggested the very dark chocolate to counter balance the sweetness of the sweetened coconut but since I'm using unsweetened coconut there's no particular need for the chocolate. I think I'm just going to add some chopped macadamia nuts as per R10 suggestion.

I'll put the bag of 72% dark chocolate chips in the freezer and save them for something else down the road.

They look dry as.fuck, less like something you would eat than use to scrub clean the bottoms of pots and pans.

Hey datalounge gurls- This is a photo of the finished product cooling off. They actually look better in real life than they did in the NYT photo. The instructions say 30 to 40 minutes in the oven. I left it in the oven for the full 40 minutes without checking them because I knew they would need at least the full time. When I check it wasn't browned at all. I kept adding a few minutes here and there. I must have added a total of 7 minutes total to achieve the desired result. I probably should have kept sticking a toothpick in the center that is a more accurate way of determining doneness. Than just looking at it and touching the center for firmness. I took them out at 5:15 pm. Once they were completely cooled I put them in the refrigerator to chill- as per NYT instructions. I'm too tired now but tomorrow evening I will cut them into squares and freeze them and when a craving hits I will try them then. I've been good for several days and am not prepared to break my streak yet.

Well, thanks for reporting back. I haven't been able to sleep. And now you keep us hanging because you haven't even tasted it. I hope it's not dried out due to the extra-long bake.

R18- The NYT said they're done when it's firm in the center and browned all over. It was browning a bit at the edges but not in the center. Some woman complained about baking it the full amount of time/40 minutes and it was still not properly cooked.

In the photo at OP, I wouldn't call that "brown." They're probably fine. I'm sure there's lots of fat / oils in them. A cake would probably dry out, though, with that much extra baking.

R20- If I were to make this recipe again I would test for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center every two minutes- this would insure that they were not over baked.

If you look at the photo in the NYT recipe they are no more browned than mine are.

Congo squares = Blondies to everyone else.

Yes,they look much better than NYT pic. Curious have,you tasted yet? Are they chewy like a granola bar? I love the idea of bar cookies-less time than drop-one pan.

I thought I read NYT recipes often have issues.

R23- I hate to say this but I froze the lot of them because sonny boy here is on a diet streak. As of midnight I will be good for one week. I want to keep it up as long as I can. When I break my streak I will try some of the coconut bars and report my findings here. There's a recipe for a chocolate cake ( one layer) that readers have given five stars. In a few weeks I might make that recipe next.

R24- They often do. One must read the letters underneath the recipe for reader suggestions for improvement. One of which I followed. Several said the bars were too sweet and that you should use unsweetened coconut. Which I did. The recipe calls for 1 1/3 cups of sugar already.

Honey..... Do you really need that???? Some fruit yogurt and a banana might be a better choice.... Don't you think????

When you make the recipe the first time, don't tweak anything. Particularly not the amount of sugar or the amount of coconut (or flour). In the chance that you don't like it, you need to establish a baseline against which to tweak.

I will try to make haupia, which is Hawaiian coconut pudding. Super simple, basically looks like white jello.

R28- I was thinking the same thing yesterday. I really should have made the recipe as shown before making any modifications. Then I could use that as a template to make any adjusts to the recipe as needed. Two people said the 1 1/3 cups of sugar plus the sweetened coconut in the recipe made the bars to sweet so I decided to heed their advice and use unsweetened coconut instead.

Easiest, quickest chocolate cake ever and so fucking good. My mom made it when I was a kid. More like a brownie but so moist and decadent.

1 box of devil's food cake mix (without pudding)

1 box of instant chocolate pudding

2 c. Milk

Semi sweet chocolate morsels

Cake mix, pudding mix and milk. Pour into prepared 13x9 pan. Sprinkle morsels on top. Bake. Wait for it to be devoured.

This is seriously delicious.

I think it's okay for experienced bakers to tweak a recipe (when making it for the first time).

OP, don't know why you are making these if you are trying to lose weight.

R32- I don't know why either.

This is the desert I'm going to attempt next- not for at least another two or three weeks. Some of the woman say that it tastes even better if you double the amount of cocoa in the cake and the frosting so I shall do that when making this cake. Those are the only modifications I'm going to make to this five star recipe.

You just said you shouldn't have modified the coconut bars recipe and here you go doubling cocoa.

You also said you're on a diet and here you go making this cake.

Why don't you learn how to make stuff you can actually ... eat.

R35- When these woman said it improves the recipe I'm just tempted to not make the changes. Some people write in and say they made the recipe as written and it is wonderful. I'm just not sure whom to believe. One suggestion was to triple the amount of cocoa in the cake and the frosting but that is going to far especially considering I've never made this cake before.

Why don't you just double or triple the recipe itself, OP, and eat all of it?

You know you want to. ;)

A cake mix recipe using a cake mix-???

You got a fucking problem with cake mix, cunt?