Sunday Baking Project – Week #10 – Outrageous Pretzel Bars Reinvented

It seems that I have skipped Week 9 – will maybe get back to it sometime.  And this week I am taking the recipe a bit further.  The Outrageous Pretzel Bars are really that!  They consist of a Brown Sugar Cake (Brownie-like) and are topped with a Chocolate Fudge made with Sweetened Condensed Milk and Chocolate Chips.  More Chocolate Chips are put on top along with crushed Pretzels.  And the recipe is huge – they were cut into 24 Bars but maybe should have been cut into 36.  The bars are very chocolaty and filling and one cannot really eat much at a time.  That being said, my Husband loved the Bars!  He is an avid Chocolate Lover whereas I am not.  But they were good, especially the next day after they had time to dry out a little.

I took one-third to my Mahjong Group, froze one-third for one of my sons and we tried to eat the other third.  Since my husband is very reserved as to how much he eats and I am only an occasional chocolate consumer, we did have some left over.  After a week, the leftovers were thoroughly dried out and of course impossible to eat, but being the improvisor that I am, I just couldn’t throw them away.

My Food Reinvention skills came about when my Sons were small and I got my first Blender.  I started using leftovers to make other things.  The first was gravy that I turned into soup and so on.  I have a really yard time throwing food out so the Outrageous Pretzel Bars were the perfect thing to turn into something else.

 

 

 

I broke up the leftover bars and put them into my Food Processor and chopped them up into as fine a crumb as I could.  Then I added about 1/3 cup of melted Butter and 1/4 cup Granulated Sugar.  (One could just use a Graham Cracker Crust Recipe for this Chocolate Bar Crust)  I did use it as a guide but the Butter called for was too much so I only used about 1/3 as stated above.

 

Next I pressed the Crumb Mixture into the bottom of my 9″ Springform Pan and baked it for about 5 minutes.  You could actually make the pie without baking the crust but the oven was already on for something else, so I did bake it.  The problem with baking is that it releases some of the butter and then you have to blot it off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next I made the Bavarian Creme.  I started out by making a Vanilla Soft Custard which is the base for all Bavarian Cremes.  Next I incorporated a cup of Whipped Creme into the Custard.  Recipe will be found in the recipe section of this blog.

 

 

Once the Creme chilled sufficiently I poured it into the Crust and then chilled the whole thing.  When it was ready to serve I took off the sides of the Springform and placed the whole thing, (bottom of pan included) on a serving plate and topped with Chocolate Curls.  Next I cut it into moderate portions.  The Bavarian Creme was actually much less filling than the original Pretzel Bars themselves.