Oh hey… are you still here? Me too! I know it doesn’t look like it, but here I am! And I’ve baked. See?

I made these cake batter bars! I came across them on Pinterest and immediately decided that I needed to make them so I bought a box of Funfetti cake mix on my next trip to the grocery store. We had a family dinner this afternoon, and my job is usually to make the dessert, so I figured this was a good time to try them out.

It did not go without a hitch. I made them in the morning before I left for roller derby practice. I got started a little late so I had to pull them out of the oven and walk out the door. They had puffed up more than I expected, but looked fine. But when I came home from derby, the middle had sunk away from the edges. They looked pretty scary, but I packed them up and took them to Sunday dinner anyway.

Despite being pretty funky looking around the edges (and no, I won’t be sharing that picture on the internet), they cut up nicely. They were soft and gooey and quite delicious! The sprinkles were still crunchy which I thought was weird, and I thought they tasted more like a sugar cookie than cake batter, but that’s okay. I’d make them again… and try not to screw them up the next time. Someone told me that I over mixed them, so I’ll keep that in mind. If you make them, let me know what you think!

Cake Batter Bars
Source: Lovin From the Oven

1 1/4 cup funfetti cake mix
3/4 cup AP flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 heaping tablespoons sprinkles of your choice (I used stars)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8 x 8 inch pan.
Cream both sugars, butter, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk.
Gradually mix in flour, cake mix, and baking soda until just mixed. Stir in sprinkles.
Spread batter evenly into greased pan.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until top is lightly browned and middle still jiggles slightly. Cool completely before cutting.

I’m sure I’ve said something before about how hard it is to break the silence when it’s been awhile… I’ve had this post in draft since January. I keep opening it, and then closing it again without getting the recipe copied in and posted. Life is busy and stressful. Step by step photos and descriptions are tedious and time consuming, both when making the item and when posting about it later. It makes me reluctant to blog, and sometimes even to cook. I’ve not been doing much of that lately. I have this and at least one other step by step already photographed that I will post about at some point, but after that I may switch to just a final product picture and recipes.

Anyway. In keeping with the tradition of posting desserts that I made a long time ago, today I bring you Seven Layer Bars, as seen just before Christmas last year, and by that I mean Christmas 2009!

Honestly, I didn’t even know that I had these pictures until I was going through my Flickr account looking for something else and happened upon them. Remember when I lost my camera and had to take pictures with my cell phone? For some reason, I thought I’d lost these pictures with that camera, but apparently not! I’d safely downloaded them from the camera and uploaded them to Flickr four whole days before Christmas! I’d like to think I would have posted about these a long time ago if I had known about the pictures, but I think we all know better than that.

I’ve seen these bars all over the internet with different names, like magic bars, and uh… well, a whole bunch of other ones that I can’t remember. Because they’ve always been Seven Layer Bars to me. My mom makes them every Christmas because she gets in trouble if she doesn’t. I decided to make a pan last year, not only so I could post them here, but also so I could package them up and hand them out in the goody bags I put together.

As a side note, I recommend lining your pan with something… parchment paper, foil, something… to make the bars easier to lift out of the pan and cut. I did not line my pan and I *really* wished I would have.

Onwards! Let’s get started with these super simple and super tasty cookie bars!

You’ll need: Melted butter, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, sweetened condensed milk and walnuts.

First, crush up graham crackers. My recipe called for 1 cup of graham crackers. This was NOT enough. I ended up crushing up another 1/2 cup, which turned out to be one whole sleeve of crackers.

Melt 1 stick of butter.

Combine and press into the bottom of a 9×13 pan. You can probably tell by the graham cracker crumbs that are less soaked than the others that I added the other 1/2 cup after I started this step.

On top of the crust, spread 1 cup of coconut.

6 ounces of chocolate chips

6 ounces butterscotch chips

Open your can of sweetened condensed milk and pour it evenly over the top.

Top the whole shebang with 1 cup of chopped walnuts and press the whole mess down into the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 an hour! These looked like they may have been a little too done. Sure were tasty though! I didn’t get a picture of them cut neatly into squares because I was busy prying them out of the pan and packaging them up to give away in goodie bags.

Seven Layer Bars

1 stick butter, melted
1 1/2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
1 cup coconut
6 oz. chocolate chips
6 oz. butterscotch chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup chopped walnuts

Press into 9×13 pan, bake at 350 degrees for half an hour.