The cat is finally out of the bag, if you follow me on instagram or twitter that is. After working on it in secret for most of last year I can finally say that I have written a new book, it is available for pre-order now, and it comes out in the UK this June and in North America in early Sept. The book is called One Tin Bakes and you can read all about it here, but a quick one sentence description would be - ‘One Tin Bakes is a cookbook with 70 varied and exciting recipes all using the same one tin, a 9x13 brownie tin’. The book includes everything from cakes to cookies, desserts to breads and everything in between. I am not going to spam you with info about the book all the way up until its release but if you want to find out more I will be posting about it occasionally over on Instagram so make sure you’re following me there.
Now as the book is a lot of rectangles and I worked on it for the best part of a year you would think I would be excited to bake in different tins, making round recipes after a year of rectangles, but one of the first things I baked this year, after all the edits were finally submitted , you guessed it, another rectangle. It was even in the same 9x13 tin. Obsessed. But the recipe had been sat at the top of my extensive ‘to bake’ list for months and it had to be made. When I tell it you the resulting recipe was incredible I’m not joking, not exaggerating, I loved these bars so much. The recipe comes from my friend Shauna Sever’s wonderful book Midwest Made, a fantastic book that explores the wonderful world of baking from the American Midwest and what a world that is to explore.
The midwest has a fascinating history and its baking is influenced by its different waves of immigration with German, Scandinavian, Polish, French and Italian immigrants all making their homes in the Midwest over the years. From my, obviously limited, experience and knowledge of the midwest the book does a great job at digging into the areas culinary past and presenting a fascinating array of recipes, everything from classics from German Lebkuchen to modern interpretations of classics like a Raspberry and Rhubarb Swedish Flop. I devoured the book on receipt and there are so many recipes bookmarked to be made at some point, but the one recipe that jumped out to me, the one I have been dying to make for months, is a bar recipe called ‘Chocolate-Espresso Revel Bars’. To me a revel is a brand of chocolate buttons, that had its heyday when I was a kid in the 90’s, not a homemade recipe. These bars start with a simple oatmeal cookie laced with chocolate chips and topped with ribbons of espresso chocolate ganache before a final coating of the cookie mixture. It may be two simple elements layered together but the flavour you get is a pie joy, these give me the comfort I get from a chocolate chip cookie but that sense of nostalgia that seems somehow intrinsic to an oatmeal cookie. In the book Shauna explains that the recipes seems to credited to an edition of the Iowa based Better Homes and Garden magazine back in 1968. Shauna took that idea and reduced the sweetness a little (the original was made with a condensed milk mixture) and added espresso to add a new dimension. The Revel Bar might be a midwestern classic and as far I am concerned they’ll become a classic in my house too, it’s a true baking love affair.
I have always loved Shauna’s work but this book is a particular triumph, I know how much work must have gone into the research for this book not to speak of the work that goes into developing these recipes for a modern audience, updating classic recipes for modern palettes and reinventing ideas that we had long forgotten. Whilst the recipes are historically linked they feel as exciting to me today as I’m sure they did to the midwesterners who created them all those years ago.
Espresso Revel Bars
From Midwest Made by Shauna Sever
Makes 12-24
Filling and Assembly
120g double cream
50g caster sugar
3/4 tsp instant espresso powder
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
170g dark chocolate (60% cocoa content)
Dough
300g old fashioned rolled oats
225g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
225g unsalted butter, room temperature
395g light brown muscavado sugar (see note)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
85g dark chocolate chips
Note: the recipe in the book calls for dark brown sugar but from experience British dark brown sugar has a much higher molasses content and might not be the best fit for this recipe so I used light brown muscavado which seems more in line with American dark brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch light coloured baking tin and line with a strip of parchment paper so the excess hangs over the long sides of the tin.
For the filling, in a small saucepan, add the cream, sugar, espresso powder and salt and over medium stir together and cook until it reaches a bare simmer. Turn off the heat, add the chocolate and let sit for 1 minute before whisking until smooth and glossy. Set aside to cool.
For the dough add the oats, flour, espresso powder, baking soda and salt to a large bowl and whisk to combine. In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute, or until creamy. Add the brown sugar and vanilla and beat for about 1 minute more to until smooth and lightened a little in colour. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing until fully combined. Reduce the speed to low and gradually mix in the oat mixture until fully combined. Transfer a rough 1/3 of the dough to a clean bowl and set aside for the moment. To the remaining dough stir in the chocolate chips.
Spread the chocolate chip laced dough into the prepared pan, pressing into an even flat layer that coats the entire tin. Pour the ganache filling over the base, drizzling it in thick ribbons - no need to smooth it evenly. Using your fingertips pinch off generous tablespoons of the remaining cookie dough and drop them randomly over the ganache filling.
Bake in the preheated oven for a out 35-40 minutes or until the top is golden and the bars are beginning to pull away from the sides of the tin. Let cool completely in the tin, set atop a wire rack, for about 2 hours before using the excess parchment to lift the bars from the tin (you may need to use a knife to tease the bars away from the shorter sides of the tin). To make cleaner cuts refrigerate the bars for an hour after removing them from the tin. Stored in an airtight container these will keep for at least three days.