Smitten Kitchen Gooey Cinnamon Squares (finally!)

Alright, as I also say in the video, below, I'm going to cut to the chase and go right to the point of this post: Cinnamon Gooey Squares from a cookbook called The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook:

You can find her website, here, or search her out on social media under the name The Smitten Kitchen.

Instead of trying to type up my gushing about the cookbook, let's just go to the intro video:

Okay. I realize I may sound a bit biased going into the recipe. But that also means that I have very high expectations, so let's see how that all comes out.

I won't lie: I absolutely love reading her stories, but in this case I kind of wish that the people who did her book's layout had realized that we'd rather have the ingredients and the steps all on the same page - instead of having the ingredients next to her story.

I spent a lot of time flipping the pages back and forth, trying to figure out how much of each ingredient was being used at any given time.

Yes, this time the mixer is in the background on purpose (but you can ignore the blender...).

Since it was my first time with this recipe, I did follow the instructions fairly closely, including lining the pan with parchment paper (as you saw in the video, above), and whisking together my dry ingredients all on their own. 

That is never going to be an exciting photo.

The butter and sugar went in first (as they often do), followed by the milk (I used skim milk, because it's what I had on hand - I'm guessing that one of the "richer" milk products might yield a... well... richer final product.)

NOTE: This is what happens when you usually rely on natural light for your photos, but the sun has already gone down and there's no light source right above your prep table. (See also: my feelings of inadequacy when comparing my photos to those of The Smitten Kitchen.)

With all of the liquids in, it looks kind of like the first stages of any cookie dough.

And, frankly, that's what it looks like when you add in the flour - though it is a bit softer than most cookie doughs (more like the "cookie batter" we had when dealing with the sugar jumbles a few weeks back).

I love that the recipe says to "dollop" the bottom layer into the pan, and then spread it with an offset spatula. Unfortunately, we don't have an offset spatula. So, of course, I decided to go at it with my hands.

It was a bit of a challenge, because the parchment doesn't really want to stick to the bottom of the pan, so as the batter moves, so does the parchment. (I'm guessing this would not happen with the spatula, because it wouldn't all be getting stuck to your fingers - so this one's on me.)

Like, literally, on me.

With the base layer in the pan, it's off to do the gooey layer. And - five-year-old-kid at heart as I am - I was pretty excited to get to work with anything that calls itself "gooey."

As you know, I don't have a dishwasher, so I grabbed for the same bowl I used for the flour, earlier, to whisk my wet ingredients. It was a lot bigger than I needed, but it still worked out well. (Though, honestly, adding vanilla to milk and corn syrup did not yield the most appealing color.)

I'll admit that - bad person that I am - I used my dry 1/4-cup measure to measure the corn syrup. It's just so much easier to get in there and get out every last bit of the corn syrup.
Does anyone have a liquid measuring cup that really works well for corn syrup/honey/molasses?

Of course, there's the slight factor (for the blog, at least) that aside from the corn syrup and vanilla mixture, many of the other ingredients in this layer are almost identical to the first layer. Trust me, though: I verified that the following photos are from the second layer.

Butter, sugar, and salt, creamed - with the egg added in.

The next steps, where you alternate liquid and dry additions, are really reminiscent of making a cake batter. (I believe this is done so that the ingredients don't get overworked.)

The halfway point.

The final beatings changed everything from looking a lot like the base layer to suddenly looking all fluffy and almost frosting-like.

It never ceases to amaze me how small tweaks in ingredients can make such a huge difference to the outcome.

Now, I have to admit that the recipe does suggest that you need the base layer to be pretty smooth before moving on. So, before adding the gooey layer, I dug around in the cabinet and found a pie server that I was able to use as a makeshift offset spatula. 

The base was definitely much easier to work with, this way, and I got it to cooperate fairly well before dolloping on the next layer. 

Part of why it looks like this is the lighting in the kitchen, but - really - it is kind of two shades of beige at this stage.

A little pie-server magic, and voila! a nice, smooth, two-layer dessert bar ready to get snickerdoodled. (That's a verb, right?)

The recipe says that the mixture of sugar and cinnamon, when sprinkled on top, will be "thick." So when I got to this point, I wasn't sure I had done enough. How does it look to you?

One of the hard parts of "sprinkling" is trying to get it fairly even. I think I did okay.

And - with my hands smelling a-mazing from the cinnamon, I slid the pan into the oven and set the timer.

Initially, just as the sides started to puff, the sugar and cinnamon started to melt. It looked like it was going to get soupy, frankly:

NOTE: You really shouldn't open the oven during baking. Not only does it screw up your heat, it also lets out all of the moisture in the oven, so it can mess up the moisture in your finished product. Unfortunately, it's really hard to take "in the oven" photos through the window in the door.

About halfway through the baking, it really puffed up, which looked a bit odd and "jagged" in a few places.

Seriously. What did I just tell you? Stop opening the oven door to look! 

The recipe says that the bars should puff up and collapse in the oven, but mine didn't collapse until they had begun to cool. That could be because our oven temp has been wonky, but I thought I'd mention it so you wouldn't be surprised if it happened to you.

Once they came out of the oven and cooled on the counter, the middle did sink a bit, and - wow - such a perfect golden brown top!

Yes, this photo was taken post-cutting. So we should probably go to the video...

How did they turn out? I'm so glad you asked!

In case you're wondering whether they hold their shape, even with the gooey layer, here's how the pan looked after the cut was made: 

You can see that the layers all stay together - no mushing around.

Of course, the photo from the cookbook does them much more justice, though I can't imagine having the discipline to cut them into 1-inch squares. (I suspect that we'll be cutting them much larger when we're at my folks' this weekend.)

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Have a craving you want addressed? A recipe you've been searching for? Something you've heard of that you'd rather have someone else try before you do it yourself? Let me know and I'll see what I can do!