Sesame Bars

From The 17^th Annual Bake-Off comes another cookie/bar recipe. I like Asian-inspired dishes, so these cookie bars featuring sesame seeds caught my eye. Even though I knew that this was a heavily Americanized use of sesame seeds from the 1960s, I decided to try it anyway.

Sesame Bars

½ C butter

1 C sesame seeds

1 ¼ C flour

15 oz can sweetened condensed milk

½ C evaporated or regular milk

1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter in heavy skillet over medium heat. Add sesame seeds, stirring until golden brown, or about 5 minutes. Add flour; continue stirring until all is golden brown. Remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients, stirring quickly until incorporated. Return to medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture is glossy and leaves sides of pan, or about 3 minutes.

Pat into 8-in. pan. Notice nowhere in here does it say to grease the pan – I’m glad I used parchment paper, because these things are STICKY!

Cool, then refrigerate. Cut into bars, squares, or triangles.

As I cut these to serve, I noticed that they smelled a lot like peanut butter. The bars have a very interesting flavor, not necessarily sesame, but nice. They get very sticky and soft if you leave them at room temperature, so I recommend storing them in the fridge or freezer (although fresh out of the freezer they’re very hard and chewy). Not sure if I would make these again, but my guests for game night seemed to like them, so no big deal.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!