Triple Layer Bison Bars

 

Today’s offering is in conjunction with the bi-monthly Cook the Books Club pick.  Here’s my review.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As with his other book, the author totally nails small town Midwest and I found myself chuckling as many of the characters (and the bars! Ah! Such a Midwest staple!)

Unfortunately, that’s about all I liked. I’ve come to realize that author’s writing style (don’t get me wrong, he’s an excellent writer) is just not my thing. He has a penchant all of his characters experiencing great tragedy, but then there’s a hint of some warm fuzzies there at the end. I dunno, it just seems like too much for one novel to contain.

View all my reviews

Ok, so not my cup of tea, but what I’ve appreciated in both the author’s books was the spot-on descriptions of the midwest, especially Minnesota.  Having grown up in the midwest, I feel like I’ve met many of these characters personally.

I also knew immediately after starting Pat Praeger’s section of the novel that I was going to make bars.  As in the book, “bars”, much like “hotdish” are an institution of the midwest.  Growing up in the 90’s, every church lady had a “bars” recipe and they all knew theirs was the best.

So what to actually make?  I’m apparently a traitor to my roots, because I very rarely make bars.  I make brownies, but those are kinda outliers as far as bars are concerned, plus I already shared my go to recipe for that one.

Then I remembered last year when I was working at a fundraiser bake sale (featuring many varieties of bars), and one was bison bars.  They looked pretty tasty so I bought one and they were quite good.  I made a mental note to make them someday.

Well, someday has now arrived, so I decided to make those bison bars.  Obviously I started by googling them and…nothing.  Then I remembered that none of those church ladies running the fundraiser had heard of bison bars (desserts were donated from the church at large for this one).  It probably should've been a red flag.  So I put ChatGPT on it, thinking that maybe AI had more powerful searching than me.  AI also couldn’t find a recipe, but suggested it was probably from a church cookbook from North Dakota or Minnesota and named after a local football team.  OMG!  Could this recipe be more perfect for “bars”?!?

Anyhow, I decided I had to work backward from a one year old memory.  Most of the recipes I found that were similar were for a Boston Cream Pie Bar but included a graham cracker crust and I just didn’t remember a crumbly crust like that.  Side note - did I mention that the midwest loves to rename stuff (and I didn’t know this until I was an adult); hotdish = casserole, puppy chow = muddy buddies, scotcheroos = special k bars, and bars in general means anything cooked in a pan and cut in a square.

So I decided to start with a shortbread crust (which was hard as a rock because I massively overbaked it - instructions below have knocked down that baking time), topped with pudding and ganache.  

Are these real Bison Bars?  Who knows, since I don’t have a hyper specific church cookbook.  Were they delicious?  Absolutely!  The whole family enjoyed these ones!

Bison Bars

Shortbread Crust

½ cup butter, softened

¼ cup sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

Pinch salt

Vanilla Pudding Filling

1 (3.4 ounce) box instant vanilla pudding

1 ¼ cups milk

Chocolate ganache

½ cup heavy cream

8 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line an 8x8 inch pan with parchment.

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until light and fluffy.  Scrape down the bowl.  Add the flour and salt and mix until the dough starts to hold together, however the mixture will still be crumbly. 

Press the dough into an even layer in the prepared pan.  Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.  Move to a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, make the filling.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the pudding and milk, set aside to thicken.  THe mixture will become quite thick.

To make the ganache, heat the cream until steaming.  Add the chocolate chips and set aside for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, whisk until smooth.

To assemble, pour the vanilla filling over the crust and smooth into an even layer.  Next, pour the ganache over the filling and smooth into an even layer.  Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.