Theoretically, we’re halfway through the summer after July 4th. But since the school year here didn’t end until June 20th, we’re not at the halfway mark yet. Nope, no siree! It’s in the 90s, my schedule is more flexible, and I’m getting in lots of quality family time!

There’s something really satisfying about hanging out with everyone when the weather is hot. We can log in lazy pool days, enjoy evenings in the cul de sac after dinner blowing bubbles with all the extra sunlight, and stop looking at the clock so much. We can also pause for afternoon ice cream snacks, and let’s face it. Those are the best. Right now my freezer is fully stocked with EDY’S® Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and EDY’S® Baby Ruth Ice Cream, and they’re getting a lot of attention. How could they not, when they’re inspired by two of my favorite candy bars?

Since you all know I’m the biggest bargirl ever when it comes to baking, I made a batch of Butterfinger® cookie bars to go along with my ice cream. There’s pretty much no greater combination in life than a good dessert bar and a bowl of ice cream.

The other day, my middle kid had her birthday weekend. She was born right before July 4th, which means that the doctors didn’t bother us at all in the hospital after she was born. They literally ran off to picnics and barbecues, leaving us behind. In fact, the doctor who delivered her met his wife that night at a party. It was a strangely tranquil weekend, and I remember just relaxing with my newborn and eating an entire package of cookies. Hey, I’d earned it.

What struck me at the time was how important family is to everyone, even busy-seeming hospital staff. I mean, the place was nearly deserted. There aren’t many times of year when people just clear a place and head home en masse, but summertime is when we all want to be together. The summer nights might be long, but the months pass quickly. Actually, so do the years. That newborn is now six years old, and she’s not a baby anymore.

Thankfully, she’s someone whom I also like as well as love, and we have a lot in common. One is our endless fondness for ice cream. When she saw the containers of EDY’S® Ice Cream in the freezer, she knew that the best kind of Walmart trip had just taken place.  We took out spoons and had a snack moment together, just my birthday girl and her proud mommy. Plus, I feel a lot better about sharing ice cream with my kids when it’s made with fresh milk & cream with no rBST (milk production hormone). This ice cream is so good, and it has the good stuff in it too!

To go along with our ice cream, I made these Butterfinger cookie bars. The base is a chewy peanut butter cookie, and then I filled the dough with chopped up fun-sized candy bars. I even crumbled some more Butterfinger on top for the perfect finish!

When paired with EDY’S® Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream, these cookie bars make the perfect summer snack. It’s even better during these long summer days that we all spend together. Take some time out with the people you love! This is the time, y’all.

Well, I am planning on slamming back some five-dollar margaritas, so does that count as being ready? Maybe I’m okay. But in all other respects, I haven’t been baking my way ready. It’s all Passover’s fault. But now that’s over, so this no-strings-attached party can get some love!

People love lemon bars at picnics, but that’s only because they’ve never met lime bars. If given the choice, I’ll go for lime every day. It’s so much more refreshing, and it pairs beautifully with a frozen margarita. Salt on the rim, of course.

This weekend was a miracle of sorts. My kids decided to not fight (!) and play peacefully with Legos for hours on end, giving Kenny and me the chance to nap on the couch with books. It was a revelation to actually get enough rest. That hasn’t happened since sometime in 2008. I might be a nicer person if weekends like this happened more often.

Once upon a time, I was probably generally more fun. In fact, I know I was. I went out at night to clubs and slurped down cocktails, dancing until the wee hours. On a nearly weekly basis, I would throw dinner parties for large groups of friends and stumble into bed around three with a sink full of dirty dishes and more piled on the counter. I would spend weekends unproductively lying around in bed, or reading the entire newspaper while eating Frosted Flakes, or sitting in the sunshine for hours with a book.

Who is that woman? I think I left her far behind. These days, I’m physically incapable of going out at night to fill the gas tank, much less to find a place to go dancing. I throw a twice-yearly dinner party and clean up everything before bed, knowing that I’ll have to deal with kids in the morning. And sleeping late means occasionally getting to stay in bed as long as 6:30 before my spawn locates me hiding under the covers.

This is where people would typically say that they wouldn’t have it any other way, life is perfect now, they never knew what they were missing before they had kids, blah blah blah. Listen, I love my kids. That’s not up for debate. But I seriously miss the cool girl I used to be, and I wish some of her had survived the onslaught of motherhood. She’s in there somewhere, but I have rare opportunity to access her these days.

Conclusion? Somebody meet me in New York for a good steak, a great cocktail and a night out. I’m dying to go. In the meantime, I’ll just have to plan out a Cinco de Mayo.

Like I said, it’s kind of snuck up on me this year, and I have to survive a 4 year-old’s birthday party on Wednesday first. But if I make it through, these bars are coming with me to any celebration. And have I mentioned the margaritas?

I used to drink a lot of margaritas in my fun days, and now I drink a lot fewer. But they’re happening this week, and they’re happening with these lime bars. The bar has a simple shortbread base and an even simpler filling. They get topped off with a lime glaze and some lime zest. Have I said the word “lime” enough here?

So maybe I’m not the crazy girl I used to be, but I’m going to find a way to do it up this Cinco de Mayo. These bars are just the first step!

As I’ve mentioned, this is the most challenging food week of the year. I don’t like matza or anything that tastes like it, so my Passover philosophy is to avoid cooking or baking with it as much as possible. Instead, I use nut flours and potato starch, which taste much closer to the real deal.

Every year I buy a new recipe book, and this year I got Paula Shoyer’s The New Passover Menu. It’s an incredible cookbook, and it includes these cookie bars. My holiday is now officially better!

Lately, I’ve experienced a little crisis in confidence. Do you ever go through that? It’s much easier to believe in ourselves when others believe in us. Whenever someone overlooks me or underrates my abilities, I start to doubt myself. I’m guessing that I’m not alone in that.

There are areas in life in which I feel unquestionably competent: teaching, for instance, or baking. Parenting? Nope, that’s something I always feel insecure about, but that seems normal to me. I assume that feeling that way is totally fine, so I’m okay with that kind of insecurity.

But what happens when someone questions my abilities in an area that I dominate? That I am, unquestionably, excellent? Ideally I should stand tall and think, “What jerks.” But there’s also that little voice inside me, the one that says, “Maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”

Those are dark thoughts, and I try to banish them. But when they pop up, it’s not pleasant. Can anyone relate?

While you’re busy thinking about that, focus on these bars. I’m totally confident that they rock. Hey, my confidence in baked goods shall never be shaken.

The nut flour really makes these rock. I’m a big fan of ground almond meal, and when mixed with a flour stand-in (potato starch in this case), the result is really quite reminiscent of a non-Passover dessert. I think Paula Shoyer must be simpatico with my own Passover baking rule of thumb: never, if it can possibly be helped, bake with matza meal or matza cake meal. Go with something more natural. Both the texture and the taste are better that way. I did adapt Shoyer’s recipe a tiny bit (the original includes more mix-ins), but I’m hoping she won’t mind!

We all have rough weeks, or months, when we’re feeling a little less confident than usual. At least, I think we do. Maybe that’s just part of life, but I hope we all come out of it okay. After all, not every day can be great. But it can include great cookie bars!

Well, sort of. I mean, I’m not ready. But this is the closest I’ll be. We can’t spend life on a beach. Or maybe we can’t. I keep wondering if I could change my life and live on a beach. I mean, they need teachers everywhere, don’t they?

While I’m contemplating a change in location, I might as well bake. In fact, it’s one of the things that keeps my life grounded. Whether I stay in colder climes or not, I will always love crumb more than anything. These bars are all about the oatmeal crumb, which sandwiches a layer of fudge. The whole thing gets topped off with M & Ms. Did I say these were happy? Or was that just too obvious?

There’s so much I can share about my vacation, but I’m going to start with the fact that whenever Kenny and I go away, our getaway quickly becomes a test of how much physical activity we can squeeze into whatever time we have. Example: in one morning we rented both kayaks and paddleboards, and this was after an hourlong workout and a long beach walk. And that was just the morning. We kept the exercise up all day long.

We both love being fit, so when I realized that there was a barre studio across the street from our hotel, I called them and set up a class. If you don’t remember, I’m a huge barre girl. I started doing the workouts over two years ago, and I’ve stuck with them. I have my own barre at home, and I alternate cardio and barre (or do both) every day of the week.

The best (in my opinion) technique so far is Physique 57, which is one of the original barre methods. However, I tried another popular name-brand studio this time, feeling kind of guilty for cheating on P57. Don’t worry: the guilt didn’t last.

Friends who have done live barre, please share: does your studio amp the music up so loudly that you can only kinda sorta hear the instructor? Because that’s what happened in Florida. Everyone seemed to be in a state of confusion. One woman was following the next who then followed the one after her, resulting in a bizarre body game of telephone where the last person in the row (ahem, me)  had to improvise a lot. And all the while, the instructor was walking around praising everyone (even me) for doing different things, not even noticing that some feet were pointed while others were flexed, or that I was making up a push-up series out of my own head.

So I apologized to the gods of Physique 57 in my head, and I’ll never cheat again. Well, probably. It’s hard to resist a barre studio on vacation, especially when you and your spouse are hell-bent on spending the day being active.

I’ll probably pick another day this week to talk about the sun and warmth, since I have to give a little time to these bars.

They’re heaven. That’s it. Oh, and no mixer. Just some microwave action!

It’s rough being back in the grind, but my baking will never desert me. Now all I have to do is think about whether life in D.C. can really trump a life at the beach!

Everyone’s busy making holiday toffee, but I didn’t feel like taking out my candy thermometer and dusting it off. Dusting is boring. Instead, I cheated with these amazing cookie bars. You will not want to stop eating them, but that’s not really a problem.

Covered in butterscotch goodness and crushed toffee, I can’t imagine a better holiday cookie offering. I mean, I’ve made a lot of different bars this season, but this one is above the ordinary bar.

Last week, I took two days away from my job to take a class. It’s pretty much ingrained in teachers to want to keep learning, so we take a lot of classes.

Gotta be honest here: I kept losing focus while I was in class, which brought me back to my days in school. College and graduate school were fine because the classes were shorter, but this class made me remember what it’s like to sit all day while people make you work. It’s hell.

It’s kind of ironic for a teacher to be saying this, but I really don’t think we were meant to sit still all day. I’m lucky to have a very active job that lets me stand and move at will, but I think about people with desk jobs and I wonder how they don’t lose their minds. How do you sit in one place for eight hours or more and not completely lose it?

Today I’m grateful to be back in my classroom with my students, bopping around and getting stuff done. But I do feel for the kids I work with, who move from class to class without much of a break. It must be tough, and now I realize that my increased academic success in college probably had to do with more than just maturity. It probably had to do with getting more breaks and a chance to clear my head.

If I can’t get actual breaks in my day, at least there are snack breaks. And I always want my snacks to be of the highest possible caliber, so these butterscotch toffee bars fit the bill!

The base is my favorite cookie base of all time, which is heavy on the brown sugar for added moisture. It’s soft and pretty hard to stop eating. I slathered melted butterscotch chips on top and then sprinkled on chocolate toffee bits. Heaven, you guys. Just heaven.

This is one of those bar cookies that I had to give away immediately for fear of turning into a cookie monster. But it’s the holiday season, so everyone’s willing to eat some extra cookies for me! And I love spreading the cheer.

If you’re looking for the perfect butterscotch toffee fix, here it is. Look no further!

In bars, to be specific. Soft, lovely blondies. If we’re talking dangerous, these squares of heaven are it.

Not that you should run away now. Come closer. Take a look!

This fall, I’ve been all about celebrating the flavors that make these months stand out. Sure, there’s pumpkin and apple, but there’s also butterscotch. And cinnamon! Seriously, in the autumn, there is no better spice. It’s everywhere, and we just forget how important it is.

In general, people are inclined to take things for granted. It’s only natural. That’s why I try  really hard to be grateful for not just the material things in my life, like my iPad (oh, how I love you), but for the people as well.

Just in case I’ve never mentioned it, I’m married to the nicest, most patient man in the universe. Back when I was little, my dad used to tell me something like, “Never marry a man who won’t cross the desert just to get you a Coke.” Maybe I’m misquoting a bit. But the idea was, my dad wanted me to wind up with a guy who would go to any lengths to make me happy.

When I first started dating Kenny, I kept waiting for that thing to happen where about six months into being with a guy, they stop exerting themselves quite so much for you, and then it just keeps fading until the relationship loses that glow. Well, it never happened. I’ve known Kenny for half my life and our ten-year wedding anniversary is coming up this year. He’s never stopped treating me like a queen.

So you’d better bet that I’m grateful. I make a concerted effort never to take him for granted and to be the best wife ever. But yesterday I was kind of snappy, and he just took it with his usual good humor. How amazing is that? I wish I could be that cool.

Anyway, I try not to take anyone for granted. Not Kenny, not our children, not my family, not my friends, not fellow bloggers. We only do this once! Let’s do it up right, and with appreciation.

Boy, do I appreciate these bars. Enormously and endlessly. They’re comforting and full of cinnamon and brown buttery goodness. Plus, they’re full of cinnamon chips. If you can’t get them at the store, you can buy them online. I get them on Amazon, home of all shopping glee.

You won’t believe the softness of these guys. They have cornstarch in them, which makes them pillowy soft. Whatever you do, take the blondies out of the oven as indicated, or trust me, they won’t be as good. The key to a good blondie is underbaking them just a touch.

When you’re done, you’ll have a dessert you can appreciate. We should never take any delicious food for granted, starting with these bad boys!

If you catch a whiff of almond extract and you want to drink the bottle, then you love marzipan. If not, well, yep. Sorry. You can come back next week when I have some fun spooky treats set to go!

These are buttery cookie bars topped with a gooey layer of baked marzipan and toasted almonds. I’ve had to hide these in a dark corner of the freezer to avoid consuming every last one.

Like marzipan, acquired tastes abound, and not just in food. I made the mistake of recommending Pitch Perfect to my parents last week. When I saw that movie with Kenny and my brother at the movie theater, we fell out of our seats with tears streaming down our cheeks. We were laughing that hard.

The night my parents sat down to watch the movie, I got a very short e-mail from my mom along the lines of, “This movie sucks.” She informed me that it wasn’t funny, had bad music, and that she and my dad just didn’t get it.

I’m assuming that it must be a generational issue, right? Because people in my age group (not to mention my beloved high school students) loved that movie. And the music, too. I mean, college a capella is so strongly embedded in our culture nowadays, but it probably wasn’t back when my parents were pursuing higher education.

So the movie didn’t mean much to them, and I’m okay with that. I still think that a girl doing snow angels in vomit is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

After all, don’t so many things take time to appreciate? Like Ugg boots, or kale? But once we’re there, we’re there. And I’ve been appreciating marzipan since I was little tiny, thanks to my German grandparents.

Yep, marzipan is a German thing. But I’ve managed to add American flair by putting it on a cookie bar. Because, as you know by now if you read my blog, bars are my jam.

The key to making a good cookie bar is to make it nice and thick. Then it’s just so much fun to bite into. The sticky marzipan topping along with the crunch of the toasted almonds means that your texture senses will be so happy right along with your taste buds.

Just be wary of the marzipan. You want to brown it, but don’t let it go too long. The top should be firm, but underneath will be that fantastic gooey layer right before you get to the soft, thick cookie bar.

Not everyone has the same taste, which is a mercy. And it can take some time to fall in love with something, which is why I became obsessed with sushi after years of not wanting it. Just be glad that some tastes are acquired. They just want to take the time to get to know us!

Or, you know, hidden in a closet from your kids. Whichever image suits you best.

I can’t think of a happier way to highlight the superiority of butterscotch than these thick cookie bars. They’re chock-full of butterscotch chips and topped off with even more of the stuff. Say hello to my new favorite bar cookie!

Recently, my favorite protein bar changed their recipe and now they taste gross. One part of me is really upset about this (time to find a new protein bar, so I’ll take suggestions!), but another part is relieved. I thought my tastes had changed, that something was wrong with me.

How often do our tastes change? They say every seven years, but it must be far more often than that. Either that, or our taste for a particular food changes every seven years, but not all foods. So, I might start liking coconut one year, and mint another, but not at the same time. What that means is that our tastes are changing all the time. That’s my nerdy theory, anyway!

When I bit into my protein bar a few weeks ago, it tasted absurdly sweet, like aspartame. I’m not into that at all, so I ate about three bites before casting it aside. Have you ever noticed that artificial sweeteners are often way too sweet? They just don’t taste good, not even to a dessert fanatic like me. There is such a thing as too much.

And too spicy, too. Kenny can eat food with any degree of heat, shrug, and say it’s not hot enough. Not me. I’m a total wimp. I take a bite of my favorite spicy crunchy salmon roll and have to down half a glass of water before eating another piece. Too much spice just ruins the flavor of the dish.

So not only do our tastes change, but they’re highly subjective. Never bother apologizing for your taste. If someone thinks you’re crazy because the thought of Thin Mints doesn’t get your heart racing with glee, tell them to get over it and enjoy having all the cookies to themselves. More for them!

And if you don’t like butterscotch, I’m not really sure what your problem is, but I accept it. Still, these bars are the very essence of butterscotch goodness, all chewy and thick and desirable. If you have no problem with butterscotch, get on this train, like, yesterday.

Look at how thick these guys are. I’m so proud of them. They have some real heft. Everyone loves a bar with bite. And they’re not only brown sugary, but they’re also full of butterscotch chips. I was very generous.

If you look closely at the pics, you’ll notice that the butterscotch chips on top are sort of melted-looking and bendy at the edges. That’s because I piled them on right after these bars came out of the oven. Butterscotch chips will pretty much hold their form unless you really force them not to, but if you put these on while the bars are hot, the chips will melt into the top of the bars and stay there, for the most part. Some will come off, and then you’ll eat them. It works either way.

When you’re done, you have a dessert bar to be proud of, something that is autumnal but that isn’t made out of apple or pumpkin. How’s that for change? After all, our tastes change all the time, and so should our treats. Getting stuck in a dessert rut is a big no-no. Embrace change!

If you have, you probably love them as much as I do. They’re an old-school candy bar with a peanut and a molasses-like chewy center covered in chocolate. They’ve been around for quite a long time. I happen to know that because my ancestors were chewing down on them back in the earlier part of the 20th century. There are some family stories that center around these candy bars.

Like, back in the day, they were apparently very hard to actually chew. Nowadays they’re softer, and I’ve always loved them. So I had to put them into a soft, dense, thick peanut butter cookie bar! These peanut chew bars are full of the candy and peanuts, too!

Another reason my parents and grandparents enjoyed these candy bars is that they’ve always been certified kosher. I might have mentioned this before, but every single recipe on this blog is 100% kosher. That’s because I keep strict kosher in my home, so I only bake with products that have the certification.

When I was a kid, so many products that are now kosher weren’t. I didn’t try my first Oreo until my 20s, when Nabisco finally made them kosher. My first taste of M & Ms was in my late teens for the same reason. And when my dad was growing up, Hershey bars weren’t kosher. So all he had by way of chocolate bars were Goldenberg Peanut Chews.

One of the reasons I’m so passionate about food as an adult is that I had limited options as a child. I grew up in Indiana, where there isn’t a kosher grocery store. Treats were hard to come by. We either went to Baskin-Robbins or bought Entenmann’s. Man, I have a lot of happy associations with those rich frosted chocolate donuts that come in the blue and white box.

Keeping kosher is much easier on the east coast, where there are a lot more food options. My children have no idea what it’s like to drive three hours to Chicago just to stock up on a couple of months’ worth of fresh meat. They don’t see anything special about ordering a pizza for takeout because there’s a kosher pizza place two minutes away from our house. And they absolutely don’t understand a world where nobody else is like them, where they have to miss out on soccer games or birthday parties because they take place on the Sabbath.

I’m so glad they have no idea that it’s harder in other places. Someday, they might appreciate that we live in a place where it’s easy to observe our laws and customs. But as someone who grew up in a place that didn’t have everything we needed, I take special pleasure in making sure my kids have the things I didn’t.

Isn’t that what every generation wants, after all? For the next one to have it a little easier? I don’t know if we’re really succeeding in that, but I’m sure my dad was happy that my only candy bar option growing up wasn’t a Peanut Chew. Even though they’re completely delicious.

So much so that when I saw them sold in unwrapped bites in the store, I had to buy them and bake with them immediately. These are the softest peanut butter bars ever, and with the chewiness of the candy bars plus the crunch of the peanuts, it’s a perfect texture combination.

If you’re a fan of chocolate bars baked right into your dessert bars, then this is a must-try. I just ate two in a row. Not sorry. And maybe if my kids are good, I’ll let them share. After all, heaven forbid they ever feel deprived of a peanut chew bar.

Well, let’s get that fixed right away. Anything that involves a wafer and chocolate should never be ignored. That goes double for these bars, which exceed the already super addictive quotient of my usual baking fare.

Seriously, I couldn’t stop eating these. I tried, too. But no matter how many I gave away or shared, I still had enough to make a dent in the batch. And that is an accomplishment worth savoring, my friends.

In general, I’m a big believer in taking credit where it’s due. Maybe eating a ton of cookie bars isn’t precisely an accomplishment for most people, but it is for me. You see, like most women in America (80% according to most statistics), my relationship with food is not completely functional.

For many reasons, only some of which I understand, I developed an immense fear of weight gain back in college, and it has hovered in my consciousness ever since. I’ve never been overweight, and anyone looking at me from the outside would see a petite woman with an athletic build.

So then, why the complex? As I said, I can’t fully explain it, and it would take too long to try right now anyway. It’s partly social, partly psychological, and probably a tad genetic as well. It’s never easy to explain why we are the way we are.

I’ve had to work really hard over the past few years to try and get things in perspective, and it’s a battle I fight daily. In fact, my theory is that most food bloggers are fighting the good old balance battle, one way or another. Why else would we choose to spend so much of our time with tempting food?

In my case, facing the foods that have scared me has been pretty healing. Being around an object of fear removes quite a bit of that fear. I no longer look at Kit Kat cookie bars as an unattainable desire. Instead, they’re there. I eat them if I want them, or give them away if I don’t. If my lunch includes too many cookie bars, I’ll make sure that dinner is healthy and balanced. That’s all I can really do for now, and I’m trying not to hold myself to impossible health standards. Working out is great, but I can miss it now and then. Dessert is one of life’s pleasures, and I don’t want to cut out sugar. It would launch me into the throes of dysfunction.

As it turns out, Just About Baked is not just about dessert. I love telling you stories or making observations about life, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. And while we’re at it, I can also focus on the lovely desserts.

These cookie bars are thick and slathered in chocolate. Each little square has its own Kit Kat bite. These bars are pretty much perfect. I have no idea why it took me so long to do this.

Sometimes it takes a long time for us to admit that we’re not perfect, and even longer to admit that being perfect is not a feasible or desirable life goal. But when things get tough, we can face our fears and conquer them. After all, women are crazy strong. And it doesn’t hurt if our secret weapons include chocolate.