Nothing will please a crowd faster than chocolate cake, and when you add a rich chocolate glaze and cover the cake with all kinds of candy bars, you’re basically asking people to come to your house and never leave. If that sounds okay to you, proceed!

After all, nothing will fill a house full of visitors faster than baked goods. I find that when there’s a candy assortment in the mix, you just have to get used to having privacy invaded on a regular basis.

That’s not really a problem for me, but for Kenny, it’s awful. He’s an introvert, and our house is very loud for him already. Our three monsters make a ton of hullabaloo, and when their little monster friends come over, it’s even worse. I try to hide the chocolate during any and all play dates.

It’s kind of tough when an extrovert marries an introvert. I charge my batteries by being with other people, and I’ve had to really cut that back now that I see what it can do to Kenny. He would never complain, but I know that spending the day around people is not his thing at all.

Whenever we do get together with friends, I have a really great time. But I can usually tell from Kenny’s body language that he’s dying to get home and lie on the couch. I mean, that does sound nice, for maybe an hour or so. Then I really want to get out there again and hang out with people.

Our society really gives introverts a bad rap. We make it harder for them to get ahead in the workplace, we misinterpret their preference for quiet as hostile or unfriendly, and we refuse to acknowledge that it’s okay for some people to prefer to be alone to get their energy. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have friends, or want to do well at work, or anything else. It’s just a different way of seeing the world.

It gets to the point where introverts force themselves uncomfortably out of their natural preferences, and it shows. My mom is an introvert, but she values the qualities that extroverts exhibit, so she goes out of her way to be very social. I admire her for putting herself out there, but as a natural extrovert (not to mention her daughter), I can tell when she’d rather be at home getting some downtime.

Regardless of social preference, we can all agree that a candy bar chocolate bundt cake is a good way to unwind and recharge after a long and stressful day. I made sure to pile this high with as many candy bars as I could: we’ve got Almond Joy, Snickers, Milky Way, Twix, Reese’s, Kit Kats, Nestle Crunch and M & Ms. And have I mentioned the thick chocolate glaze? I think I did, but it bears repeating.

As long as I keep baking cakes like this, people will drop by on any old pretext to share a slice. I love it, and as for Kenny, well, he’s getting used to it. But I don’t want him to change, and we’ll keep meeting somewhere in the middle. Introvert or extrovert, we can all bond over a big slice of cake at the end of the day.

But if you use Halloween as an excuse, up the ante with some fabulous bark. It’s easy to make, not to mention easier to eat. And it’s full of Halloween candy!

Yep, you’ve got that right. Candy pumpkins, check. Kit Kats, check. Reese’s PB cups, check. Hershey bars, check. Whoppers, check. Oh, and let’s not forget about the lovely sprinkles. Or the milk and white chocolate swirly base. Now do I have your attention?

My attention has been wandering of late. It’s kind of hard to stay focused on any one thing. I read an article a few years back that tried to prove that while men like to focus on one thing at a time, women are more cognitively apt to try and do many things at the same time. In other words, women are natural multitaskers. Which means that as I’m writing this, I have a pie in the oven, a pile of laundry next to me that I fold between sentences, and a child asking me questions in my right ear that I may or may not be answering.

Any number of experts will inform us that when we try to do several things at the same time, none of them get done well. Those experts can kiss my a$$. Ask them how daily to-do lists can get accomplished by doing one thing at a time, and see what they say. Unless your daily list has about three items on it, I don’t see how that can work.

Before we had children (i.e., B.C.), Kenny and I would talk around 11:30 each workday morning. Our phone conversations would go like this:

Kenny: How’s your day going?

Mir: It’s cool. I’m getting a ton done. I’m so tired.

Kenny: Really? It’s only 11:30!

Mir: It’s my lunchtime. I’ve already taught for four straight hours, paid the bills and made a doc appointment. What are you up to?

Kenny: Um…I took a shower.

Yep, those were the days. But Kenny, in all his manly glory, never felt bad about easing into his day and not getting each item duly checked off the to-do list that, admittedly, I created for him. And he still doesn’t really mind. I’m pretty jealous.

One thing I wonder about is whether doing so many things at one time is bad for the attention span. I do know that I’m very guilty of only half-listening to anything a child of mine is asking at any given time. Which is why these conversations happen:

Boy, Age Seven: Mommy, can I take the bag of lollipops upstairs to my room?

Mir: (absently) Sure, honey. (a minute passes) Wait, what?!

See? Not paying full attention is dangerous. Or if you’re my kid, it’s pretty great. The Boy had a whole bag of Dum-Dums up in his room (and was partway into his second) before I realized I’d been checked out.

Whenever I eat dessert, though, I try to make mindfulness a priority. I really focus on whatever is going into my mouth, and then it’s an even better experience. To be completely clear, I had no trouble whatsoever focusing on this Halloween candy bark. How could I think about anything else?

The base of this bark is milk chocolate (my personal favorite, so my apologies to you foodies who love the 90% dark), swirled with some white chocolate. On top, I piled all of my favorite chocolate bar goodness, plus those cute little candy pumpkins. I can never resist adorable.

Bark is a really great solution to the question, “I’ve got five minutes and fifty things to do, and I need to produce a treat for my kid’s class/my office party/my own sanity. What can I bake?”

In other words, this stuff comes together fast. Chill time is another matter, but 30 minutes in the fridge and you’re good to go.

My older daughter just walked up to me and asked me for tape. I have no idea why she wanted tape, but I was distracted, so I gave it to her. Why do I feel like my divided attention is going to result in my getting very upset in just a few minutes’ time? But that’s the price of multitasking!

At least I can focus on dessert. That’s really the important thing, anyway. Everything else can get done with little bits of my focus. It’s all about priorities!

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.

But my grandmother hated peanut butter. Wouldn’t even keep it in her house. So you can imagine what a disappointment I was. And I kept getting those Kit Kats.

Maybe that’s why I don’t buy them much now. I mean, they’re tasty. But it’s hard to undo those childhood associations. Even so, I really wanted to give them another shot. Thus, these brownies!

You know, Kit Kat bars rock. That’s the thing. And when you put them in brownies, they rock even more. Instead of cutting them into pieces, I put each bar in whole. That way, you get some serious chocolate punch when you bite into the brownie.

To keep things simple, I topped the brownies with milk chocolate and accented it with a few more chopped Kit Kats. Whenever I’m baking a brownie that has any kind of candy bar inside, the straight chocolate topping (no ganache, no frosting) is much more reminiscent of an actual candy bar. It’s seriously powerful stuff.

Maybe my grandmother just wanted me to share in her love of Kit Kats, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. I wish my daughter loved Reese’s as much as I do, but I’ve got to let her be her own person. And your favorite candy is a very personal choice, right up there with, you know, the important stuff.

But as it turns out, I do really like Kit Kat bars, and I like them even more in brownies. Get those chocolate cravings conquered with these guys!