Friday, April 11, 2014

Expectations Versus Reality - A Friday Food Edition

You know those "7-layer" bars that people make?

They're the ones with some kind of bottom crust - is it cake? is it graham cracker crust? - and then sweetened condensed milk and stuff.

Well, I've been craving them, lately.

I'm not sure why. I mean... We never really had them when I was growing up. They simply weren't in the family repertoire. So we had them from time to time - mostly at other people's houses, I'm guessing. But, still, they hold a special place in my heart. Probably due to the mystical quality of the 7 layers of stuff.

I mean... On top of the crust and the sweetened condensed milk, there are two kinds of chips (chocolate and butterscotch), nuts, and coconut. Which - because we can all do math when we're paying attention - is only 6 layers. But they're still called 7-layer bars. For me, I think the 7th layer is a layer of nostalgia.

You see, because I've been craving them, I decided to make them yesterday for dessert tonight when we were having people over.

I admit that I swapped out the graham cracker crust for an Oreo-crumb crust, because I knew that chocolate would go over well with the people who would be eating them. But aside from that I followed the recipe. And I kept thinking about how good they were going to be.

And when I took them out of the oven they smelled amazing. They looked great.

Tonight they cut easily and came out of the pan with no hassle, and I thought "this is going to be amazing."

And it was. For about a bite. And then I kind of started thinking "Wow. This is too sweet. And the texture of all the components is weird."

Okay. Yes. Over the course of having them on the table for a couple of hours I had a second one. And although I was more prepared for the taste, I actually found the second one to be a little less appetizing. I suspect that was because the nostalgia had worn off and I was eating the reality, instead of the imagined bars.

Oh, well. Nothing like ending your week by having reality come around and bite you in the bar.

1 comment:

Robin said...

I love this!
I also have the same nostalgia about them - and probably because we didn't make them at home so we had them at parties where someone else brought them. So we were eating them with other things which may have influenced the flavor a bit.
But I'm willing to try some again anyway!