Guest Kaye George with Clark Bars from Into the Sweet Hereafter + #Giveaway!

Please welcome author Kaye George back to the Kitchen! Kaye is sharing a fun recipe from her Vintage Sweets cozy mystery series. Her third title in the series, Into the Sweet Hereafter, will be published in March, and she's giving away a copy today. Learn more below. Now...

Take it away, Kaye!

🍨 🍉🍭 🍦

Thanks for having me back for a recipe from my third Vintage Sweets cozy mystery. I love being here! 

Tally got most of the recipes that she makes and sells in her sweet shop at Fredericksburg TX from her grandmother in New Jersey, whose hobby was recreating her favorites in her own kitchen. 

This is a simple, easy recipe, with a few pitfalls which I’ll point out. I’ll let you guess how I discovered them.

Clark Bars from

Into the Sweet Hereafter 

by Kaye George

INGREDIENTS

1 c. sugar

1 c. corn syrup

1 c. smooth peanut butter

6 c. Rice Krispies

12 oz. package of semi-sweet chocolate chips (or possibly a few more)



INSTRUCTIONS

One: Heat first two ingredients in large saucepan until just boiling, remove from heat

Two: Add peanut butter to the pan and mix well

Three: Stir in cereal (you can also use corn flakes or Special K)

Four: Spread into 9x13 buttered baking pan

Five: Press into corners

Six: Melt chocolate chips in another pan, spread on top

Seven: Refrigerate, then cut into squares or rectangles

STEP ONE

Heating these two is easy, unless you spill the sugar all over the stove. (This picture is before that happened.)

STEP TWO

Then add peanut butter.

STEP THREE

When you stir in the cereal, if you’ve used the size pan I did, you will realize you need a bigger one. NOTE, USE DUTCH OVEN FROM THE BEGINNING. Honestly, I sometimes think they just have me here for comic relief.

STEP FOUR

Now it’s time to butter a cookie sheet/baking pan/whatever you want to call that 9x13 thing and spread this out. It cools quickly, so work fast.

STEP FIVE

Scrunch it into the corners with your fingers. By this time, it’s not too hot, if you work at the same speed I do, which is less than lightning quick.

STEP SIX

Melting the chocolate is easy. Spreading it out is not. This cools even more quickly than the cereal and peanut butter mixture.

See, this is why I think it would be better to just use more chocolate chips. I couldn’t spread them think enough without tearing up the bottom layer. 

STEP SEVEN

Now you can put them in the fridge and go do something else for a while.

(It’s worth noting that you’ll need a pretty sturdy implement to lick the chocolate. It not only cools quickly, it cools hard.)

THE REST OF STEP SEVEN

I don’t think you should use a Teflon cookie sheet. That make it hard to cut these. They’re very solid. I managed to get one row out, then lifted the whole thing to a cutting sheet to use a sharp knife.

ALL DONE! They taste very good!

You’re allowed to ignore this part for a bit. 

Maybe the maid will show up.

I love to bake and used to like complicated recipes that took all day. Time has passed, however, and I gravitate toward easier recipes. 

Do you like to dirty every pan and spend a lot of time creating marvelous concoctions, or do you like simple, easy things to make?

Answer Kaye's question in the comments

and you will be entered to win an e-copy

of her new release (learn more below).

🔎

About Our Guest

Kaye George is a national-bestselling, multiple-award-winning author of pre-history, traditional, and cozy mysteries (her latest is the Vintage Sweets series from Lyrical Press), as well as over 50 short stories. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Smoking Guns chapter (Knoxville), Guppies chapter, Authors Guild of TN, Knoxville Writers Group, and Austin Mystery Writers. She lives and works in Knoxville, TN.

Keep in touch at:

My web page 

My Facebook page 

My Facebook author page

🍭🍭🍭

COMING MARCH 9TH!

Spring has sprung in the charming tourist town of Fredericksburg, Texas, and one of the tastiest attractions is a trip to Tally’s Old Tyme Sweets—until a bizarre burglary leaves a bitter aftertaste. 

Learn more or pre-order
by clicking here. 

👇

KAYE'S GIVEAWAY (NOW OVER)

Answer Kaye's question in the comments (and include your email address) and you will be entered to win an e-copy of Kaye's new Vintage Sweet cozy mystery, Into the Sweet Hereafter. Kaye's question is...

Do you like to dirty every pan and spend a lot of time creating marvelous concoctions, or do you like simple, easy things to make? 

Congrats to Kaye's winner: 

Pat D.

Welcome Kaye George Twinkies Recipe + book #giveaway

Today's guest, Kaye George, is sharing a recipe for a treat most of us remember from childhood: TWINKIES. The recipe comes from Revenge is Sweet, the first book in her Vintage Sweets mystery series. Please welcome Kaye. Be sure to scroll down and leave a comment to win a copy of Revenge is Sweet. 

I’m thrilled to be here at your kitchen! Let me warn you that I’m not a world-class cook, so this may not go as smoothly as one would like. My main character, Tally Holt, inherited a box of old-fashioned recipes from her grandmother, who liked to try to recreate favorites at home. This inspired her vintage sweet shop. Tally is a much better baker and maker than I am, but she doesn’t have time to do this, so I’m stepping up to give it a try.

I’m going to make the facsimile Twinkies from the first Vintage Sweets mystery, REVENGE IS SWEET. The first thing you should do is assemble your ingredients early. The butter, cream cheese, and Cool Whip need to be room temperature, so get everything out and let it sit.

Using a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and half of the butter.

Next, add water, pudding mix, and cake mix. 

NOTE: Because I was making this in Corona Time, I didn’t have exactly the ingredients I needed. I had almost all the butter for the first part and used some soft butter (1 tbsp) to make ½ cup. I also didn’t get the cake mix I wanted from Instacart, but this one is close.

You can see that the egg/butter mixture is, well, a bit lumpy. I would not advise using that kind of butter.

I used Pam and parchment on the jelly roll pans. I really did not want these to stick. And they didn’t! The crusts came out nice. I took them out after 15 minutes since the toothpick was clean when I tested.

Now you need to relax and let the layers cool, then make the filling. At this point, I knew I didn’t want to use the butter stuff I used before. I was all out of actual butter. But I had a giant tub of Smart Balance and look, it says on the side, it’s for baking. (This was the only size available when shopping at Kroger with Instacart I think it’s a lifetime supply. That expires next January.) It works great! This mixture came out nice and smooth, just like it should.

Next problem was sifting. Oh no, the powdered sugar is supposed to be sifted! I got out my sifter, which was probably last used in 2001 or 2002. It’s kinda rusty. But I have a big sieve sort of thing. If you put the sugar in it and stir, it comes out sifted.

I would recommend leaving some of this in the bowl to lick. It’s pretty good.

On to the next problem. Turns out, lifting the top onto the bottom, which has been spread with filling, is a two-person job. But, hey, we’re going to cut them anyway, right? Also, it didn’t stick, so the parchment paper worked.

Here are some cut pieces! Not beautiful, but good tasting.

For better instructions and very pretty pictures, I can highly recommend Kim Davis’s blog. Hers turned out much nicer, don’t you think?

https://cinnamonsugarandalittlebitofmurder.com/2020/04/twinkies/

Ingredients and Instructions-Make the cake portion first

4 eggs

1/2 cup butter

1 cup water

1 box of instant vanilla pudding mix

1 boxed yellow cake mix

Beat the eggs, add butter and mix well.

Add next three ingredients and stir well.

Batter will be thick.

Bake the cake portion

Grease and flour two 10x15 jelly roll pans

Pour half the batter in each prepared pan and spread.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Bake 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack.

Next make the filling

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, room temperature

5 cups confectioners' sugar

1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix butter and, cream cheese. Sift the confectioners sugar and add.

Beat well.

Add whipped topping and vanilla and stir.

Combine

After the cakes are cooled, spread the filling on one layer. Place the second layer on top.

Cut into bars.

If you don’t eat these right away, you can wrap them in plastic and store them in the freezer. They’re good cold!

Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com by Tyler

Kaye George is a national-bestselling, multiple-award-winning author of pre-history, traditional, and cozy mysteries (her latest is the Vintage Sweets series from Lyrical Press). Her short stories have appeared online, in anthologies, magazines, her own collection, her own anthology, DAY OF THE DARK. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Smoking Guns chapter (Knoxville), Guppies chapter, Authors Guild of TN, Knoxville Writers Group, and Austin Mystery Writers. She lives and works in Knoxville, TN.

Web page: http://kayegeorge.com/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kaye.george

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kaye-George/114058705318095

You can get Revenge Is Sweet here, and preorder Deadly Sweet Tooth here.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS BEFORE MAY 20TH FOR A CHANCE TO WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED PAPERBACK OF REVENGE IS SWEET.