Dessert Bar Recipes
Dessert Bars Overview
Originating in the Midwestern United States, dessert bars, or simply bars or squares, are a type of American “bar cookie” that has the texture of a firm cake or softer than a usual cookie.
Often dessert bars are one of the more popular types of desserts at bake sales and are often made for baby showers, bridal showers, birthdays, and weddings.
Once the ingredients have been combined to form the dough, the dessert bars are placed in a banking pan and then baked in the oven. After they are done and cooled, the baked dessert is then cut into squares or rectangles to make the “dessert bars.”
Some dessert bars do not need to be baked as they are pressed into the pan and normally refrigerated to “set” the recipe and then cut into bars.
They are especially popular during the holidays, but many people eat them all year. Many coffee shops and bakeries also offer dessert bars on their menu for customers.
They include peanut butter bars, lemon bars, chocolate coconut bars, pineapple bars, apple bars, almond bars, toffee bars, chocolate cheesecake bars, and the “famous” seven-layer bar.
Dessert Bar Ingredients
The main ingredients are sugar, eggs, butter, flour, and milk.
In addition to the base ingredients, additional ingredients added may contain apples, blueberries, cherries, chocolate chips, cocoa powder, coconut, cream cheese, graham crackers, lemon, mini-marshmallows, nuts, peanut butter, pudding, and raspberry jam.
More exotic bars may be made with ingredients that may include butterscotch, candies, pistachios, pretzels, pumpkin, raisins, rhubarb, sour cream, and vanilla.
Dessert Bar History
At this time, the history of the dessert bar is not known other than dessert bars originated in the Midwestern area of the United States.
Dessert Bar Recipes
Below are the dessert bars that we have published to date. As new recipes are published they will be added to the list below.
Some dessert bar recipes may appear under more than one category if there is more than one main ingredient.
