Seven-Layer Dream Bars

Tradition dictates that this afternoon, I should have been with the women on my mom’s side of the family, exchanging dozens of holiday cookies at our annual cookie exchange. But I’m 650 miles from home instead, and anyway, there was no cookie exchange this year.

Holiday cookie swaps seem to be making a comeback. I always thought the cookie swap was somewhat old-fashioned, a relic of my grandmother’s day, but suddenly there are cookie swap cookbooks, special cookie packaging, cookie swap recipe cards, and all kinds of other goodies popping up to help you plan and execute the perfect cookie swap. I applaud this. Holiday cookie swaps are a fabulous way to get your holiday baking done in one fell swoop, meaning one recipe. They’re also a great excuse to get a group of women – family, friends, or a combination of both – together for an afternoon of good food and laughter.

I grew up going to the annual family cookie exchange (that’s a two-and-half-year-old me in the photo above, wrapped in my mom’s apron and decorating Christmas cookies). My maternal grandmother began the tradition, inviting her five daughters and innumerable granddaughters and great-granddaughters over for a ladies’ luncheon and cookie swap on the first Sunday afternoon in December every year. We spent the day before baking from sunup to sundown, a dozen cookies for every household that would be in attendance plus a dozen “to pass.” On Sunday morning, we dressed in our holiday best and headed over to Grandma’s. My grandma would greet us at the door wearing her holiday apron, a sparkling holly brooch pinned to her dress. The table would be set with her special dishes – the Christmassy Johnson Brothers’ Friendly Village. We spent the afternoon visiting with aunts and cousins and first-cousins-once removed, enjoying “lady food” (crudités and dips, rich casseroles of which one only needed a bite or two, traditional luncheon menu items like Jell-O salads, and decadent desserts). My grandma’s fancy glass punch bowl was always full of some sweet concoction with ice cream or sherbet floating in it. And of course, we all sampled the cookies.

During the early years, we brought our cookies in old-fashioned round tins, set them out on a long table in the dining room, and then went around the table and took our share of cookies from each tin. We included the recipes, handwritten on holiday recipe cards. Later, we started finding ways to pre-package the cookies in their individual dozens – holiday paper plates slid into gallon-size Ziploc bags, small tins or pretty boxes from the dollar store, cellophane candy bags printed with snowmen or Santas. This was all long before Michaels or JoAnn Fabrics began to sell fashionable holiday treat packaging designed by Martha Stewart. We made do with whatever we could find.

As the years went on, we began to expect certain “signature” cookies (some of which were really candies) from various members of the family. Grandma almost always made oatmeal date nut cookies or her mother’s farmhouse molasses cookies. My aunt Lenore’s standby was a particular hit: a layer of creamy peanut butter sandwiched between two Keebler Town House crackers, then dipped into melted white chocolate – a perfect balance of salty and sweet (even now, just thinking of them makes me hungry). My aunt Ardith often brought butterscotch haystacks (crunchy chow mein noodles stirred into melted butterscotch chips and dropped in small piles onto waxed paper to harden). Cousin Kathy switched from buckeyes (another favorite) to white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies over the years. My mom rotated between peanut butter blossoms (a peanut butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss pressed into its center), Oatmeal-Coconut-Chocolate No-Bake Cookies and Seven-Layer Dream Bars (also known as Magic Cookie Bars). There were often lemon bars, carrot cookies, M&M cookies, and gingerbread men. And somehow, one person always managed to bring old-fashioned cut-out sugar cookies, decorated with colored sugars and non-pareils.

When Grandma became too infirm to host any longer, my mother, aunts and adult cousins began to take turns. It wasn’t a big deal to plan: the swap was always the first Sunday in December, and all the hostess had to do was collect RSVP’s, then call everyone who was attending and tell them how many dozen cookies to bring. Everyone brought a dish to pass for the luncheon, the hostess provided the main dish and the beverages, and that was that. But somehow, in recent years, it’s become more and more difficult to manage. People have moved farther apart – some, like me, now live out of state. My grandma and two oldest aunts have died. Other family traditions have sprung up, like church plays and family trips, that take place that first December weekend.

It’s been three years since we’ve had a family cookie exchange, and I sure miss it. It was one of the few times during the year that I got to see my extended family. I’ve organized a few other cookie swaps with friends and co-workers, but they never seem to have the same spark. Maybe it’s because the family cookie exchange was, for me, a piece of my grandma that was still alive. It was an afternoon infused with the things that mattered most to her: family and good food and fellowship.

In the spirit of the cookie exchange, I’m posting one of my favorite holiday cookie recipes. These Seven-Layer Dream Bars are actually six layers when my mom makes them; she’s not big on the butterscotch chips, but I think the combination of chocolate and butterscotch makes these more decadent. I also use chopped pecans instead of the traditional walnuts. If you want the original recipe (circa sometime prior to 1975, I believe), you can still find it on the label of a can of Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk.

Seven-Layer Dream Bars

1/2 cup unsalted sweet cream butter, melted
1-1/2 cups crushed graham crackers (you can buy the crumbs already crushed, or make your own – just put the crackers into a Ziploc bag and smash with a rolling pin)
14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
3 ounces milk chocolate chips
3 ounces butterscotch chips
3 ounces sweetened flake coconut
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350°.
Spray the sides and bottom of a 9″ x 13″ pan with oil.
Pour the melted butter into the bottom of the pan. Add the graham cracker crumbs, and stir with a fork. Use your hand to press into the bottom of the pan, forming a nice, even crust.
Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk on top of the crust, forming a complete layer.
Sprinkle on the chocolate and butterscotch chips, then the chopped pecans.
Sprinkle on the coconut, and use your hand to press it all gently together, so that the coconut won’t flake off later on.
Bake 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden and you can see the condensed milk bubbling up between the top layers.
Cool completely and cut into squares.
Makes about 24 bars.

For the printable recipe, click here.