Yeah, Real Mature

What can you do, though?  Today’s treat, Revel Bars, earns its name, as one bite brings childhood flooding back.  Adult cares and worries melt away in sweet, chewy smoothness.  Age is irrelevant as happy memories become present reality.

An exaggeration, surely?  Not for anyone who’s tried one of these.  When Cook’s Country featured Revel Bars in its June/July 2018 issue, merely contemplating the results was all it took to lose grip and to float away on waves of contentment.  Could the dessert these dreams produce be any better?  Yes, actually, it is.

Though the magical confection went by various names in nostalgia’s golden dawn – Jumble Bars was another common label – the dessert is a beguiling combination of fudge atop an oatmeal cookie, fresh from the oven, still soft and chewy.

The fudge’s variety is as vast as the imagination.  Though chocolate is “standard,” much as in childhood, anything is possible.  In the three examples pictured above, the choices are, from left to right, chocolate, butterscotch and chocolate-peanut butter.  If one’s happy lot is to chose among levels of amazement, butterscotch is absolute tops, though the other two also enrapture.

Want a second opinion?  To those readers who also are colleagues, you may reach your own conclusion, as the Revel Bars you see are currently in the freezer but will be thawed in a few days to contribute to the office Christmas party.  By the way, several sources opine that these are even better after they’ve been frozen.  If that’s true, the resulting ecstasy may overwhelm partygoers.

To those of you who won’t be at the Christmas party, you still have a chance to try these.  Revel Bars’ reputation also has inspired major companies, as both Starbucks and Disney offer them to visitors.

Makes sense, as these things will transport anyone back to childhood, even if only for a blissful few moments.  They’ll make eight-year-olds of us all.

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Chocolate Revel Bars

• 3 cups “old-fashioned” rolled oats
• 2 cups flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup almonds, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 16 tablespoons (two sticks) butter, melted, plus two tablespoons, unmelted
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 12 ounces chocolate chips (*1)
• 1 cup evaporated milk (*2)

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together the oats, flour, brown sugar, almonds, baking soda and salt.  In a separate medium bowl mix the melted butter, eggs and vanilla extract.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, and mix until everything comes together as a slightly moist dough.  Take a cup-and-a-half of the dough and set it aside.

Press the remaining dough evenly into the bottom of a greased 9″ x 13″ baking pan. (*3)

In a microwave-safe bowl, pour in the chips, the evaporated milk and the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter.  Cover and microwave at medium (50%) power for 90 seconds.  Remove from the microwave and stir the contents with a spatula until they’re silky and uniformly smooth.

Pour this into the baking pan, atop the dough you already pressed into the bottom.  Using the spatula, spread the melted chips until they completely cover the dough in a smooth, even layer.

Take the cup-and-a-half of dough you reserved and sprinkle small pieces more-or-less evenly across the layer of melted chips you just created.  This will leave about half the surface exposed.  No matter, as this is what you’re trying to do.  Besides, the “islands” of dough on the top will expand slightly as they bake.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the dough on top becomes golden-brown.  Cool on a rack for six hours, to allow the fudge to set, which will make the bars much easier to cut.

NOTES:

1 – This is usually what’s in one bag of chips.  If the bag holds a little under 12 ounces, don’t worry; the dessert still will be flavorful enough.  Of course, change the variety of chips if you want to produce a different strain of Revel Bar.  I did just this by choosing butterscotch chips for one variation, and a mixture of chocolate and peanut butter chips for the other.

2 – This is what’s in one small can; at least that’s true in North America.

3 – I found that lining a baking pan with aluminum foil, then greasing the foil, works best.  Be sure to use a little more foil than you need.  Press the foil into the pan’s corners and make sure it adheres tightly to the pan’s edges.  Fold any excess over the outside of the pan to hold the “liner” in place.  After the bars bake, letting them cool before removing the foil liner works well.  After six hours, firmly grasp the liner from opposite ends and lift it from the baking pan.  The bars should lift up with the foil.

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