Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars

Whilst in Camberley Library looking for a completely different set of books, I came across the Hannah Swensen mystery series in the 'thriller' section, written by Joanne Fluke. One in particular caught my eye, no doubt because I was still mulling over the contents of my third (?) blog post.

Devil's Food Cake Murder, by Joanne Fluke follows is set in small town 'Lake Eden', Minnesota, where Hannah Swensen owns a small yet highly successful bakery. Everything is perfect in her life. Her love life is blooming, and she is equally happy for her best friend Claire, who has recently married Reverend Bob Knudson. When Bob's old friend Matthew Walters comes to stay, the (insert chosen proverbial) hits the fan. Matthew has a bit of a sweet tooth, and is ironically found face down by Hannah in a plate of Devil's Food Cake, with a bullet in his head. This sort of messes up the honeymoon plans of Bob and Clare, who had been relying upon Matthew to fill in at church for Bob in his absence.

In several ways, Devil's Food Cake Murder might remind readers of a typical 'whodunnit' sleuth/detective novel. Hannah Swensen, whether through morbid curiosity or simply seeking justice for her friend' husband's friend, starts asking questions and begins to piece together a sticky trail of clues left by the murderer. What makes the novel very not typical, however, is it's inclusion of recipes randomly dotted throughout. Instead of simply including the recipes as an appendices at the end of the novel, they are interwoven into the text.

In chapter eighteen, Norman, a dentist and admirer of Hannah's, offers to help her bake some goods for 'The Cookie Jar'. He makes 'Brownies Plus', while she makes 'Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars'.

"What are they?"

"Six-layer cookiebars with chocolate cookie crumbs on the bottom, semi-sweet choclate chips next, miniature marshmellows on top of that, white chocolate chips sprinkled on the marshmellows, chocolate cereal layered on top with some milk chocoate chips over everything."

"Wow! That's a chocolate Euphoria, all right!"

"You'd better believe it! I tested the recipe last week on Andrea, and she said that after eating only two, she felt like she was walking on air."

(Fluke 2011: pp190)

Having read this chapter, and the conversation above between Norman and Hannah sat cross-legged in the library, I was sold. I had to make this  recipe. Joanna has done an amazing thing by integrating her recipes into the story, and the testimonies from characters such as Andrea and Tracey (neices, from what I have read) did not lessen the temptation for me. I went from the library to Sainsburies, and bought as many of the ingredients as I could get my hands on whilst agreeing with a more sensible (she thinks) voice in my brain which told me I could probably substitute some of the ingredients to save money.

The recipe is written by Joanna, as if Hannah has told her the recipe and can be found on pages 196-199 of the novel. It's a weird distortion of reality, following instructions that were written by a real person, pretending to be a fictional character who then shared the recipe with the real person. The surrealism of this is hightened through the inclusion of 'Hannah's notes', (three in total) which are completely different to the commentary-style notes of Joanna!! The bold writing in the recipe is, I think, a note of Joanna's, unless labelled as one of Hannah's.

So, I assembled my ingredients, and preheated the oven to about 170 C, (350 F) as instructed by Hannah and Joanna:

• 1/2 Cup butter  This is where I encountered my first difficulty - when my scales, which have been threatening to die for some weeks, finally did. I didn't have the time or patience to find some batteries, and so the amount of butter used was partially guess work on my part.
• 1 and 1/2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs I used Oreo Cookie Crumbs. I like Oreos. I like them very much.
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips. I couldn't find these, so I just doubled up on the milk chocolate chips instead.
• 2 cups miniature marshmellows
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 2 cups Cocoa Pops cereal
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips

Having melted the butter in the microwave for approximately fifty seconds, I then mixed in the oreo cookie crumbs. It took about a pack and a half of oreos crushed up to get 1 and a 1/2 cups, just to let you know.  Then I spread it in my prepared dish getting as even a coverage of the bottom as possible.(regrettably, larger than that used by Hannah.)

I then layered the other ingredients on top, just as Hannah described - chocolate, followed by marshmellows, followed by white chocolate, then condensed milk and then choolate cereal topped with more chocolate.

It then came to putting the dish in the oven, at which point I struggled. Unlike Beth, I was not lucky enough to have someone remind me to check that the oven was empty. So I opened the oven door and found it as so:

 Having made space in the oven, I then cuddled up to read some more of the novel, cuddling my dog, Scarlet on the sofa. A picture of her is necessary, so that all may appreciate her cuteness.

Learning from my Devil's Food Cake experience, I did not leave the dish in the oven for the suggested 20-25 minutes, but instead set the timer to go off after just 15 minutes, since my oven is fan-assisted and very eager to do things well. So, a couple of chapters later, and I took this out the oven.

I'm still waiting for it to cool as I type this, but I assure you I'll take a picture of the finished product when it is ready.