Sweet

Julienne’s Graham Cracker Chewy Bars

Gravel roads remind me of graham cracker crumbs. My childhood best friend called her grandma “grammy” and it reminded me of graham crackers. Once I ate a store-bought graham cracker crust  standing in my mom’s pantry… and loved it.

I’ve always loved graham crackers so I knew I’d love this recipe since it has way more graham cracker crumbs in the ingredients than anything else.

Side-note: one of the eggs I used had freckles. This isn’t a recipe requirement, but it might make your bars extra good.

I used up most of my brown sugar and all of my fancy vanilla. (I didn’t run out of my kosher salt, but it just wanted to be in the picture too.) This would’ve made me crabby except that I now have graham cracker chewy bars that are dangerously good.

Julienne’s Graham Cracker Chewy Bars
Recipe adapted from Celebrating with Julienne via The LA Times

Ingredients:

crust –

  • 3 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 3/4 cup ( 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 T all-purpose flour

topping –

  • 2 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
  • 1 T vanilla extract
  • 3/4 t salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup chopped pecans or chocolate chips (I used chocolate chips because I had them on hand.)
  • powdered sugar, if desired

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the graham cracker crumbs, butter, sugar and flour until moist and well-blended. Press the mixture firmly and evenly over the bottom of a 9 x13 inch baking dish. (Feel free to line the baking dish with foil and spray it, like I did. I just wanted them to be super easy to remove and cut later on.) Bake until the crust is golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes.
  2. While the crust is baking, in a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and eggs to blend. Whisk in the graham cracker crumbs, vanilla, salt and baking powder until well-blened. Stir in the pecans or chocolate chips.
  3. Spread the mixture over the baked crust and return to the 350-degree oven until the filling is light-golden on top and jiggles slightly when tapped, 20-25 minute. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and cool completely.
  4. Sprinkle a light coating of sifted powdered sugar over the pan if desired, and cut into 24 bars. The bars can be made 1 day in advance. Wrap in plastic and keep at room temperature.

The crust was supposed to be more crusty and the top more chewy…
Mine turned out all chewy. I’m ok with it.

6 thoughts on “Julienne’s Graham Cracker Chewy Bars”

  1. I sure did love them! Jake did too! I bought graham crackers and made my own crumbs that way.

    I’d recommend baking the crust for 15 minutes instead of just 10. Since the chewy top turned into a chewy everything, instead of having a nice crunchy bottom. 🙂

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