A recipe worth keeping

I love this play dough recipe and have found it to be the very best. I have tried others, but inevitably they end up too sticky or too hard or too lumpy, or too something. ;o)

Well, I lost my beloved recipe for a while and have been using other recipes for close to a year now. I get so discouraged every time I make an inferior batch that I have even resorted to buying real Play Dough again! So knowing we’re due for a new batch soon, tonight in near desperation I took out every recipe in my whole recipe file.. and I FOUND IT!!! (It was in the dessert file of all places. Hmm… wonder what I was thinking when I put it in there! I must have been pregnant or had a newborn at the time…)

So I am posting a copy of the recipe here so that if I do somehow lose the little card again I will have a back up copy on my hard drive as well as on the web. There may be a better recipe out there somewhere, but I have yet to find it. So for now, I’m sticking with what I know and love!

Best Play Dough (and it is indeed well named!)

Boil 2 cups water, add food color (Just keep adding drops until you like the color of the water – go darker than you think, it gets much lighter when mixed with the rest of the ingredients.) and 3 Tbsp olive oil. Remove from heat and add: 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt and 2 Tbsp alum. Mix well, and knead when cool enough to do so. As you knead, add handfuls of flour as needed until it reaches the best consistency. (This is a great part for the kids to help with, as long as you let it cool enough that they can help without making their sensitive hands too tender) Store in a Ziploc. Refrigeration is not necessary (I never have and it lasts months and months) but I believe it does make it last longer.

Mmmmm....

I finally feel like it's fall. The leaves are starting to turn colors in earnest now, and those warm, sunny days are ending in cool, crisp evenings rather than the stifling hot nights of summer.

I forget every year how much I love fall until we hit this point. I am a summer girl myself. I love the freedom and joy that come with long hot days with backyard BBQs and popsicles in sandy, wet hands, dripping down little bare chins and chests. So I always start to mourn a bit the end of summer and the onset of fall, sad for all the wonderful days that are soon to be left behind.

But then fall really starts. And I remember that I really love it. I love the turn of seasons. All of them really, but summer turning to fall is really just lovely.

So to celebrate my very late acknowledgment of fall’s arrival, I thought I’d share my favorite fall recipe. So here it is, my Pumpkin Spice Bar recipe. You should make it. It’s pretty fast and really simple and terribly fattening. And, best of all, I guarantee you’ll LOVE it.

Benny's Pumpkin Spice Bars

In a small bowl, mix together:

2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

In a larger bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer) combine:

4 eggs
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree (or your own fresh pumpkin is fine, too)
1 cup oil (I use canola, but it’s a flexible recipe)

Once the wet ingredients are all mixed, slowly add the dry mix into them. Then pour the resulting batter into an 11x15 baking dish (9x13 is OK, but I find the bars better when they are thinner). I usually spray my pan with Pam or some other non-stick spray. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. DO NOT OVERCOOK. That is crucial. These are very moist, and you do not want to cook them to the point that they dry out. I just check with a toothpick and wait until the center does not look wet, but particles do still stick to the toothpick.

Once the spice bars are cool, spread cream cheese frosting over the top. The more the better. You can use a can of pre-made, but I use a homemade recipe and it’s definitely better, if I have the time and ingredients. In a pinch, the can will work just fine, though. My cream cheese frosting recipe is from Mary Grace, actually. But I’m sure she won’t mind my sharing it:

Beat together until creamy:
One 8 oz pkg softened cream cheese
½ cup softened butter
1 + tsp vanilla (I always make it an overflowing tsp…)

Then slowly add 4 cups powdered sugar and mix until it’s done.

To make it pretty, I usually drag a fork across the frosted pan of bars lengthwise in little waves back and forth. But that’s optional.

In the end, it’s a lot like a cake. But it’s much, much better, in my humble opinion.

So, happy baking and happy eating. Let me know if you try it. I’d love to know if it’s as popular at your house as it is at mine.