Churro Bars from Imperial Sugar

Churro Bars - made August 20, 2023 from Imperial Sugar 

1 cup unsalted butter

2 cups light brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1. In a medium saucepan, melt and brown butter. Remove from heat and let cool for 20 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl, stir together melted, browned butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and stir to combine. Stir in baking powder, salt and flour, mixing to combine.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together granulated sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle half of mixture evenly over bottom of prepared pan. Pour batter into an even layer and smooth top. Sprinkle remaining mixture evenly over top.
5. Bake 25-30 minutes or until edges are lightly golden. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

Although I usually include a batch of brownies in each of my military care packages for Soldiers Angels, I sometimes mix it up with non-chocolate bars to offer a different flavor and on the off chance there are non-chocolate lovers in the unit.

Snickerdoodles are my go-to cookies so the bar form makes sense. These are technically churro bars but they also are cinnamon-sugar-based so potato/po-tah-to. Same dif.

These are slightly different from snickerdoodle bars in that you sprinkle half the cinnamon-sugar on the bottom of the pan before you spread the batter over it, thereby "sandwiching" the bars between two layers of cinnamon sugar, much like a churro is coated all over. That only partially worked as some of the bottom sprinkle stayed on the foil instead of adhering to the bars.

The batter itself was rather dense so the bars turned out dense. Not quite "fudgy" in texture but more dense than cakey. Not sure I loved these. As a snickerdoodle substitute, they're not bad. I think I just prefer them in cookie form. But these packaged and shipped nicely so they served the purpose they were meant to serve.