It’s spring! You know what that means…
lovin’ the sunshine
lovin’ the flirty sundresses
lovin’ the beaches
lovin’ life
loving the gifs!
How could you NOT love that creamy, squishy sweet pumpkin magic bar layer there?
Yes, I’m sure all of you who have seen my latest batch of posts know that I have recently become obsessed with gifs. Whether or not this will turn out to be an occupational hazard to my health remains to be seen.
Are they all lovely gifs? Certainly not. I’m a gif-fing amateur (is giffing a word? What good is being in an English doctoral program if you can’t make up your own words? Giffing is a word)–I use *cringe* online software because for some reason or other Windows Movie Maker does not work on my computer. I cannot figure out for the holy life of me why. (Any ideas, techie folks!)
So back to my point–these gifs are not Da Vincis. In artistic merit, they’re not Picassos or Monets or even Stephanie Meyers–nope, they’re definitely better than that. Sorry, Team Mayers folks. It must be said.
As my dearest friend Clark Gable says about this very subject (or maybe it was a different one–I get mixed up when it’s this time of the school year), “Frankly m’dear–I don’t give a damn.“
Because I drool over them anyway. This may or may not have physically happened to me in the middle of, erm, lecture last week when I was staring at them. It’s okay, nobody noticed.
There were many reasons for my choosing to go total gif-scapade (invented word number two–I’m on a roll! er, a stale one), but the biggest one was when I made the world’s fudgiest brownies and wondered how in holy heck I could convince you all of it. Pictures didn’t seem like enough. (As the Genie says: “Not enough…”)
Movement? Yes.
Showing the fudginess? Yes.
Gif? Yes, yes, YES.
Also, if you haven’t already seen the gif-spirational sensation Izy over at Top with Cinnamon, you probably want to pop on over there. Give credit where credit’s due, I always say! She’s a gif-nius.
So. To wrap it up, since I’m out of writing space (and frankly, I have a pile of papers waiting here to be graded).
Students asked me for this recipe.
Fellow TA’s asked me for this recipe.
You’ll want this recipe.
Kind of like you’ll probably want to eat these gifs and photos off the screen right now. Don’t. It’ll ruin your screen. I’d advise running to your oven RIGHT NOW instead.
Because they’re scrumdiddlyfantawesomelectabletasticumptious.
(PhD…here I come.)
Frosty Pumpkin Streusel Magic Bars Adapted from Bakers Royale Yield: 9×9-inch baking pan Ingredients:
- 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
- 3/4 heaping cup pumpkin puree
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 1 large apple or 1.5 medium apples, peeled and chopped (I used Fuji)
- 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 recipe streusel topping (below)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9×9-inch baking pan and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, white sugar, and 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon until mixture is completely moistened. Press lightly but evenly into bottom of prepared pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Pour evenly over the graham cracker crust. Sprinkle apples, coconut, white chocolate chips, and streusel over the top of the mixture; press ingredients lightly into the top so that they stick.
- Bake in preheated oven 32-37 minutes, until center is mostly but not completely set. (If it’s still gooey, that’s perfectly fine–it will firm up a bit in the freezer).
- Allow to cool slightly at room temperature, then pop the batch into the freezer for 30 minutes for easier cutting. Cut into bars; store leftovers in freezer.
- NOTE: Alternatively, you can bake these bars 3-5 minutes longer than the listed baking time. This will result in bars that can be stored and served at room temperature.
Streusel topping:
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 6 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons butter or margarine
- 1/4 cup pecans, chopped
Directions:
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cut in butter and rub through with your fingers until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Use as streusel topping for pumpkin magic bars, muffins, breads, or anything you’d like!
I have leftover streusel topping and 2 1 cup containers of pumpkin puree in my freezer … sounds like it was meant to be. 🙂 It looks very good.
If we’re talking about fate, the stars are currently bemoaning the fact that they wasted time on Romeo and Juliet–this is *definitely* fate! Thanks for stopping by–keep me posted on how it turns out!
I’ve been cooking all week and need to take a break this weekend but it’s definitely on my to try list on a leisurely weekend. Just made tamales today, a 2 day process, and I’m beat.
Veganizing these tonight! Thanks! <3
–Caitlin
realswanky.ca
Wow, I’d love to hear how that goes–thanks for stopping by, Caitlin!
Great looking bars! And the gifs are always way cool. Best of all, I don’t go to class, so I can drool all I want as I look at them! 😉 Good stuff – thanks.
And I’m extremely jealous of the fact! But I’m glad you enjoy the gifs, too. Thanks for stopping by, John!
These look SO good. I am SO making them next time I’m craving Fall. Pinned!
Oh, they’re scrumptious–thanks so much, Dorothy! This comment made my day.
Awesome recipe! I’m no baking whiz so maybe I can ask someone to make them for me, heh.
About the gifs – they look great! I stared at the one in this post for a long time because it looked so good lol. If you need help on creating gifs, here’s a link that may address all your problems: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111023221622AA1Df5F
Although if I may ask, why doesn’t Windows Movie Maker work for you?
Oh, and is it possible for you to put your posts under a Read More link? Or at least, a spoiler link (using the Advanced Spoiler WordPress plugin). The gifs look great but they’re heavy, so they make loading your website a lot slower. By hiding them under a Read More link (like the LJ cut), the gifs won’t have to load all at once and bog up your site’s speed.
Wow! Thank you for the absolutely stellar advice and tips–this was so fantastically helpful. I’ll be sorting through those sites and playing with them now, so I hope you’ll check back and see the gifs improve 😉 you’re fabulous! Windows Media doesn’t work because 1) I’m technologically impaired, and 2) I suspect because I may not have enough memory to run the program or something is incompatible–those seem to be the top 2 reasons on the help sites. Short answer: I’m not sure!
I considered (and may still consider) using the read more tab, but since my personal preference for other sites is to read them all in my reader, I’m going to delay that for a bit. I do appreciate the input though! Please do keep it coming–it’s just a personal preference in this case.
I hope you get these as a treat–you deserve them!! I’d send you some myself if they’d keep en route 😉 great seeing you around!
Yum…I can totally see why everyone is asking for this recipe. Can’t wait to try this. Yes, I love Spring…but seems like it’s already summer over here. I think mother nature likes to skip seasons from time to time. 😛
If you’re in LA like I am, Amy (which I think you said you are!), then I totally know what you mean–summer is definitely outside my window at this very moment! I hope you do try it–and definitely let me know how it goes. Thanks for stopping by, Amy!
“creamy, squishy sweet pumpkin magic bar layer” = just enough reason for me to make these! WOW they look amazing. The white chocolate, the graham crust, the pumpkin, everything. I love fall flavors and don’t only eat them in the fall. 🙂
I made the bars today and OMG … so good. I may freeze them next time or else just hand my guests forks, a big glass of milk or coffee for each, plunk the baking dish in the middle of the table and let them go for it. 🙂
http://a-boleyn.livejournal.com/133854.html
Ana, just lovely and fun, too. It would be great if you linked in to Food on Friday: Parsnips & Pumpkin. The showcases from this Food on Friday have not yet been selected. This link will take you to my home page where you will find a sidebar with links to all the different Food on Fridays. So that I know you have linked and can be sure to pin to the board I have for each one, please do leave a short comment. Cheers