7 Layer Cookie Bars

Cookies can be so nostalgic. We hand down recipes to new generations and hope like heck they will still make them after we've long since checked in to the Golden Oldies Rest Home. Will someone remember to make Grandma's Double Chocolate Drops or Mom's Pecan Tassies? Will they even know what the heck a Pizzelle is? Will Grandma Berquist's Swedish Christmas Bread be forgotten? I hope not.

I started a recipe journal when I was first married in 1981. I carefully hand wrote the dozen or so special family recipes that my mother, my grandmother and my step-mother cooked for me over the years - the ones that are our family favorites. My mom's meatloaf, my grandmother's 'cut out' cookie dough, my step-mom's blueberry cobbler. That poor little journal still has only those original 12 recipes in the handwriting of my youth. I've moved on to recipe boxes, manilla folders, and BigOven.com to house my hundreds of recipes. But I can't bear to toss that original journal. It turns out that some of those recipes aren't originals. Some are just nostalgic but in my mind they ARE our family recipes (even though you can probably find the same recipes on the backs of various products on the store shelves).


7 Layer Cookie Bars (actually it's more like a candy bar) have been around for years. You can find a similar recipe on the Carnation or Eagle brand condensed milk cans. I've heard these referred to as Magic Cookie Bars and one neighbor said she knows them as Hello Dollies. They are chewy, a little gooey, with a hint of coconut and lots of chocolate and butterscotch flavor. I served them during a rousing Hand and Foot tournament on Friday night.

Well actually Rodney served them. He couldn't wait any longer.


7 Layer Cookies

1 stick of butter melted
1-1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (I used the Keebler ready made crumbs, same price and less hassle than making your own)
6 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips
6 ounces butterscotch chips
6 ounces pecan chips
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 can Eagle or Carnation brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

Melt the butter in your 9 x 11 pan. Sprinke crumbs over the butter then mix into butter with fork, making sure its well distributed. Pat down evenly over the bottom of the pan. Sprinke coconut evenly.

Now sprinkle chocolate and butterscotch chips, followed by pecan chips.

Open condensed milk and drizzle a fine stream evenly over it all. Bake for 30 minutes at 350. Let cool completely, even refrigerate for cleaner cutting. Cut in squares and then hide them before sweet, little, Rodney figures out where you live.