Cranberry Magic Bars

Where to start off...firstly I am writing this on my fancy new Archos tablet so might take me a little while to write this one. Decided to make some bars as not made many still and feel like I'm starting to enter into the slightly unappetising recipes now.

This is a very simple recipe and is only in two parts. The first is to make the base which is a biscuit type. I get so frustrated making dough but this went surprising well.  Since I don't have a mixer I had to rub the butter together with the flour and icing sugar with my finger tips. I softened the butter in the microwave before taking off the wedding rings (making sure they were safe and secure on the side) before diving in. It didn't take me too long to get it to a dough. I didn't have a tin the size needed so used a slightly smaller one that I have used in ther recipes, so know it works okay. I rolled the dough out a little with a rolling pin to try and level it out bit before pressing it into the lined baking tray with floury fingers.

Popped it into the oven and it came out slightly golden all over, rather than just around the edges but looked good. Whilst it was cooking I made up the topping which is just white chocolate (I used milk chocolate too) cranberries, desiccated coconut, pecans, which i chopped a bit rather than leaving them as halves and condensed milk all mixed together. Nothing hard there. The recipe call for unsweetened milk but I couldn't find any in my local supermarket.

No need to allow the base to cool as once the topping is added it goes back into the oven for another 20 minutes. As soon as the bars were cooked they had a few minutes to cool before I had to whip them out of the tin in their lining still and into a container to be transported with me to collect my sister from the airport and delivering her to my Dad's house as they were allheading off on holiday early Sunday morning. They love my almost weekly baking treats and these bars aren't something I would eat a lot of and didn't want it to go to awaste at my house.

The first to have a taste was my Dad, Sister, Cousin and her Husband, who has just returned for his two weeks rest and relaxation during a 6 months tour of Afghanistan. I only has a few crumbs as, for once, I wasn't in a cake mood.

I had a few different reactions. Everyone agreed they were tasty. My cousin wanted more nuts in it whilst my Dad wanted the base to be more chewy. I personally thought the mixture of a bar topping on a biscuit base was a little odd. They seemed to come away from each other once cut and so it was almost like they were meant to be seperate. Not sure if this was down to something I did or if it just naturally turns out this way. Maybe if the base was chewier as my Dad suggested it might seem to gel much more. Not a recipe I will make often, just not to my tastes 
even though it was nice.