Cookie Butter Cream Bars

Remember that Speculoos Cookie Butter I got from Rinnie for last month's Foodie Pen Pals?  Well, how cool is it that I found a recipe to use it in for my Secret Recipe Club assignment!  Two worlds collide! But first, let's discuss these bars.  A sweet, creamy and delicious filling made from cookie butter tops a flaky shortbread crust gently seasoned to mimic the filling.  These are a wonderful treat and made for a lovely dessert.  Madaline and Ernie weren't familiar with cookie butter, but Ernie declared these a win.  There could be a little more flavor intensity from the cookie butter, but it's still a lovely flavor.  And the over all consistency reminded me of pumpkin pie made with a double crust.  These would be an ideal dessert for the holiday season.

So yes, it's Secret Recipe Club time, again.  By now, you probably know what that means.  Each Monday a group of bloggers post a recipe they've made from another blogger's repertoire.  Nobody knows who's featuring their blog until that day and it's a fun chance to visit new blogs and try something different. Visit some of the other bloggers in my group by checking out the blog hop at the bottom of this post.  To learn more about Secret Recipe Club, click here.

This month, I had the pleasure of baking from Everything in the Kitchen Sink.  Sarah hosts this blog and basically only declares it a good cooking day when all her utensils make it into the sink.  I can appreciate this as I wash my dishes by hand as I go and will seemingly spend the entire day cooking and doing dishes.  (Shh, don't tell Dave, but I secretly don't mind doing the dishes after I've cooked or baked up a storm.  It's kind of cathartic to go from clean kitchen to complete disaster to clean kitchen again, with the added bonus of yummy food in the end.)  Sarah has a lot of lovely recipes and I bonded over her step by step instructions that I find so useful with new recipes.  I considered making her Honey Oat Beer Bread (and probably still will), her Orange Carrot Bread, as well as her Blueberry Sour Cream Cake with Cream Cheese Ribbon.  But in the end I settled on this recipe, with a twist.  See, I don't keep Nutella in the house.  I would seriously eat it straight out of the jar.  But, again thanks to Rinnie, I do have a jar of cookie butter.  So I adapted Sarah's Nutella Buttermilk Bars to swap the Nutella for Speculoos and voila!  A delicious, creamy dessert was born.  Of course, I'm certain the Nutella version would be awesome, but I like the idea that this recipe can be adapted with different spreads--peanut butter or almond butter?  Yeah, I think you'll like these no matter how you flavor the filling.

Cookie Butter Cream Bars

Ingredients

1/2 cup plus 1 Tablespoon butter, divided
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup plus 1 1/2 Tablespoons flour, divided
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons Speculoos
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature (Note: in lieu of buttermilk, add 1 Tablespoon vinegar to a measuring cup and fill with milk to 1 cup mark)
pinch of salt

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand-held mixer, cream 1/2 cup butter and powdered sugar until fluffy.

Mix in nutmeg, salt and cinnamon.

In three parts, add 1 cup flour on low speed until fully incorporated.

Turn dough into a greased 8 x 8 inch pan and press into an evenly layer.  Using a fork, poke holes over the crust.

Bake crust at 350 degrees F for 18-20 minutes until gently browned.

While the crust bakes, whisk eggs and sugar until frothy.

Melt remaining Tablespoon butter and cool.  Whisk in Speculoos, butter, nutmeg and vanilla.  Continue whisking while sprinkling the flour to avoid clumping.

Whisk in buttermilk.

When crust is finished baking, pour filling over warm crust and return to oven to continue baking, about 30-35 minutes until center is set.

Cool to room temperature then chill until cutting into bars and serving.

Makes 12 bars.

Happy Baking,
The Cookie Princess

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