Food Fun Friday - Guest Post from Homegrown Beanes: Candy Bar Shortbread Squares

I am thrilled today to introduce you to Mamie from Homegrown Beanes!  She is a busy wife and mom of 3 who loves cooking and homemaking.  If you are looking for some great menu ideas and inspiration, you will want to check out her blog.  As the mom of a child with allergies, she has some great allergy friendly recipes on her blog as well. Today, Mamie is sharing a recipe for yummy shortbread squares made with candy bars.  You drooling yet?

We have a pill of Halloween candy lying around here.  A bunch of what we got was chocolate candy and candy that contained String Beane's allergens.  So, Mr. Homegrown and I have been "secretly" eating some when we thought the other wasn't looking.  There are candy wrappers stuffed all over the office and our cars!  Who are we kidding? 

I needed to do something to stop the maddness of the candy.  I saw a couple cute ideas on Pinterest that I decided to morph together.  It worked out great! 

First up was to get rid of some of the candy!  I found this recipe for Candy Bar Shortbread Squares and I gave it a try.  They turned out so good!  I was glad I had a plan to give them away. 

Ingredients



1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (not margarine!)

3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2 cups assorted chocolate candies or roughly chopped candy bars (12 ounces)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat butter, brown sugar, and salt on medium-high until light and fluffy.

With mixer on low, add flour in three additions

and beat until combined (dough will be crumbly).

Press dough evenly into an 8-inch square baking dish.

Bake until golden brown and firm, 25 to 30 minutes.

Scatter chocolate chips on top of shortbread.

Bake until soft, 1 minute.

With the back of a spoon, spread chocolate evenly over shortbread.

Scatter candies over top and press down gently.

Let cool on a wire rack 30 minutes.

Refrigerate briefly to set chocolate, then cut into 16 bars.

Here is a close up of the yummy goodness.

Now I had to come up a way to get these out of the house without breaking the hearts of three little Beanes.

That is where the cute idea for the Neighborhood Thanksgiving Turkey came in handy.  Click over and grab a free printable of this adorable activity.  My little Beanes liked the idea of a surprise attack on one of our neighbors!

I bagged up the Candy Bar Shortbread in clear bags and tied them off with a green ribbon.  Then I printed off the Neighborhood Turkey printable.  Then, String Beane and I snuck over to our neighbors house when they weren't home and left the treat on their doorstep.

I will love watching all of the Neighborhood Turkeys make their way around our neighborhood. This was such a fun activity!  And a great way to dump some of the extra candy.  How do you get rid of your extra Halloween candy?

Thanks Mamie!  I got rid of the candy by eating it!  I took one for the team.  If you enjoyed this delicious recipe, visit Mamie at Homegrown Beanes and say "hi!"  
These are some of my favorite recipes that you'll find there:
Potato Salad
Pizza Bread 
Cinnamon Bun