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My son is one of those kids who hates raisins. I think it is (at least in part) because they look like chocolate chips, but they aren’t.

serving-raisinbar

So this week we’re tasting Chocolate Raisin Bars… to see if he notices. (Second week in a row of sneaky raisin desserts!)

AuthorRetroRuth
Rating

From Safeway

Tested Recipe!

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 1 cup raisins
 1 cup water
  cup shortening
 1 cup sugar
 1 egg
 1 ½ cups flour
 1 tsp baking soda
 1 tsp cinnamon
 ½ tsp allspice
 ¼ tsp salt
  tsp cloves
 ½ cup chopped walnuts
 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips12 oz.

1

Preheat oven to 375°F.

2

In small saucepan, combine raisins and water; bring to boil. Remove from heat and stir in shortening; cool at room temperature (about 10 minutes). Transfer to large bowl; stir in sugar and egg.

3

In small bowl, combine flour, soda, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and cloves. Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture. Stir in walnuts.

4

Spread in greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan. Sprinkled with chocolate chips. Bake 2 minutes. Remove from oven and swirl with knife to marbleize chocolate. Bake at 375°F. for 15 minutes.

5

Cool and cut into 2x1-1/2" bars. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired.
Yield: 50 bars

Ingredients

 1 cup raisins
 1 cup water
  cup shortening
 1 cup sugar
 1 egg
 1 ½ cups flour
 1 tsp baking soda
 1 tsp cinnamon
 ½ tsp allspice
 ¼ tsp salt
  tsp cloves
 ½ cup chopped walnuts
 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips12 oz.

Directions

1

Preheat oven to 375°F.

2

In small saucepan, combine raisins and water; bring to boil. Remove from heat and stir in shortening; cool at room temperature (about 10 minutes). Transfer to large bowl; stir in sugar and egg.

3

In small bowl, combine flour, soda, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and cloves. Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture. Stir in walnuts.

4

Spread in greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan. Sprinkled with chocolate chips. Bake 2 minutes. Remove from oven and swirl with knife to marbleize chocolate. Bake at 375°F. for 15 minutes.

5

Cool and cut into 2x1-1/2" bars. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired.
Yield: 50 bars

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Raisin Bars

One of the things I found most interesting about this recipe was the wide range of brand-name ingredients — most of which I’d never heard of.

shortening

Turns out they’re all (except Nestlé, of course) Safeway’s store brands from the mid-century.

(And incidentally, if you’re melting shortening in boiling water, don’t let the pot sit in the sink unwashed. It gets a film of fat all over it that’s a pain to wash off.)

dry

So I stopped Googling and concentrated on the recipe, wondering why we were adding a bunch of spice cake mixes to cookies. This might be really raisin-centric after all.

mixing

The batter tasted terrific, though.

swirl

After only two minutes, I didn’t expect much melting. But even though the chocolate chips looked intact, they mushed and swirled perfectly.

This needed nearly 40 minutes to bake, though. I only had smaller pans than the recipe called for, and the deeper (almost brownie-sized) result took forever and was still very soft and gooey afterwards.

tasting-nibble

The original intent of this post was to have a shot of raisin-hating boy tasting and see if he noticed anything. Instead, he and his friend ran into the room, screamed “BROWNIES!”, grabbed two each, and ran away to throw sticks at each other in the front yard before I could grab my camera.

Since nobody came back in to throw sticks at me, I’m assuming they didn’t notice the raisins.

I sat Buzz down on the couch and handed him one instead.

tasting-bliss

“Wow, these are great brownies.”

“They’re raisin bars, actually.”

“Really?!?” He took another bite. “Can’t tell. Wow, these are good.”

Verdict: Gooey and good.

From his tasting notes:

Couldn’t taste any raisins. The swirling gave it a more complex flavor and it was extremely gooey and good. Interesting spice undertone played well with the chocolate.

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