I grew up in the suburbs of Middle America surrounded by mutant meal items made with convenience foods, entrées like hotdish and fruit-cocktailed Jell-O salads that I forget are chiefly a Midwestern Thing now that I no longer live there. For our office department’s St. Patrick’s Day party tomorrow, I wanted to bake something tonight different than the soda bread I made last year so Google found me a recipe for grasshopper bars on the Betty Crocker website.
“Grasshopper bars? What are those?” was the response from people around the office, their minds filling with a plague of chirping, leaping insects.
“You know, like grasshopper pie but in bar form,” I explained.
“Grasshopper pie?!”
“Crushed Oreo crust, Cool Whip or marshmallow cream filling with crème de menthe . . . ?”
Nothing but stares. I’d Suburbanized myself again. But I was determined to make the recipe anyway. It looked easy, tasty and had that requisite holiday color.
Grasshopper Bars
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
- 2 tablespoons green crème de menthe
- 2 tablespoons white crème de cacao
- 1 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
- Heat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8x2-inch pan. In medium bowl, beat granulated sugar, 1/2 cup butter, the vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed, or stir with spoon. Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Spread in pan.
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean; cool 15 minutes. Mix remaining ingredients except chocolate; spread over brownies. Refrigerate 15 minutes.
- In 1-quart saucepan, heat chocolate over low heat until melted; spread evenly over powdered sugar mixture. Refrigerate at least 3 hours then cut into bars.
As I prepared the simple brownie base, I wondered why anyone would ever bother using a prepackaged mix when it probably takes only an additional minute to measure out the flour, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, baking powder and salt to blend with the eggs and oil/butter. Scratch tastes better, is “all natural” and most cooks will have the majority of those ingredients hanging around their cupboards anyway.
The bars end up very similar to petits fours with that sugar-butter frosting. But baby, they got real ugly once I cut them into squares. The thin chocolate coating chipped and splintered, giving the tops wear patterns of polished nails after three weeks.
Friday, March 16th Update: My coworkers said they liked the bars as they scarfed down the entire pan faster than the soda bread someone else supplied this year. But I don’t think I’ll make them again. In addition to the chocolate-chipping issue, the frosting was too thick and powdered-sugary plus not as minty as I’d have liked. Perhaps my dusty, forlorn bottle of crème de menthe, the lowliest of the liqueurs, had lost its efficacy. I also learned not to use a metal knife to cut thick bars made in a new Calphalon pan, which now appears to have been mauled by Wolverine.