Adapted from Brian Noyes's Red Truck Bakery CookbookThese soft and chewy walnut bars are made from dark brown sugar and eggs. They may soon become a tradition in your house.
Prep Time10 minutesmins
Cook Time23 minutesmins
Total Time33 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: bars, walnut
Servings: 12bars
Calories: 347kcal
Author: Chef Sara Furcini
Ingredients
Unsalted butterfor coating baking dish
2largeeggs
2cupspacked dark brown sugar
1tspvanilla extract
1cupall-purpose floursifted
1/4tspbaking soda
1/4tspsea salt
2 1/2cupsraw walnutsroughly chopped
Instructions
Preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Coat a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with butter.
Beat sugar and eggs. Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the eggs, dark brown sugar, and vanilla on medium speed for at least 3 minutes or until the sugar is no longer gritty and the mixture has a nice sheen.
Mix the dry ingredients then combine with the wet. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the brown sugar mixture and beat until the flour is incorporated and streak free. Stir in the walnuts.
Bake and cut into squares. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 23 minutes, until the edges pull away from the sides and appear lightly brown. Allow the dish to cool then cut into squares. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Video
Notes
Baker's Notes:Salt: The only change I have made here is to add salt: 1/4 teaspoon felt like the right amount. I love a sweet treat with a good balance of salt and sugar, but I also know I have a high salt tolerance, so please use your judgment when deciding how much to use. I do not find these to be the slightest bit salty (note that I used unsalted, raw walnuts).Nonstick cooking spray: I don't believe in using this kind of ingredient and prefer to rub my bakeware with butter. It worked well for me, but you can use cooking spray, if you prefer.Walnut halves: The original recipe calls for walnut halves, but I decided to roughly chop them because I thought they would be easier to portion into squares. That said, I think the bars would still hold up nicely if you wanted to leave the walnut pieces whole.Baking Soda: I found a few recipes that call for a similar proportion of flour (1 cup) with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (this Taste of Home recipe and this recipe from The Perfect Pantry). I found that 1/4 teaspoon baking soda was plenty to achieve a nice rise without imparting "a taste."