Monday, September 5, 2011

Tequila Bars


My little camera and the early morning light did no justice to these.


“One tequila - Two tequila - Three tequila - Four!”  What’s that come from? Some kind of drinking game, I bet…. Well, I never played that game, but I do love tequila.  I must say after a long day, nothing tastes better to me that a great margarita. And I am sure you have noticed how much Mexican food we eat around here.

This is my first Guy Fiere recipe.  Actually it’s my second Guy Fiere recipe. I did make his outstanding Tortilla Soup last week for a Mexican Dinner party I hosted…. Many, many thanks to Gina at SPCookiequeen for the recommendation. (Gina, you saved the day!)

This is one of those recipes that I clipped (tore) out of a food magazine. It has been in storage (laying around my kitchen counter) for a while (about a year.)  With all three of my kids home for a week, I needed some extra goodies, so I dug through the pile. This one is definitely a keeper.  Hats off to Guy Fiere.



Here’s what you need:
1 12 ounce box Nilla wafers (I used reduced-fat)
½ C pine nuts
½ C butter (original recipe calls for 1 ½ C, but ½ is plenty!)
1/3 C tequila (notice in the photo above – the off-brand condensed milk but the expensive, high quality tequila…. No comment)
½ C fresh lime juice (I think some lime zest would be appropriate here also)
5 egg yolks plus 2 egg whites
1 14 ounce sweetened condensed milk
1 T sugar

Here’s what you do:

Pulse the wafers and nuts in a processor. Add the melted butter. Remove ½ cup of crumbs to use as the topping and set it aside. Press the remaining crumbs in a 9 x 13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. (Lots of people on the foodnetwork site commented that they wished they had sprayed the pan before baking, but mine did not stick one bit.)



In the meantime, make the lime filling. Whisk together the lime juice, tequila, egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk.



In another bowl, beat the egg whites with the sugar using a beater. Keep going until you have soft peaks.

Fold the egg whites into the lime mixture. Spread the lime topping over the crust and bake for another 20 minutes. Sprinkle the reserved crumbs on top of the bars. CHILL before serving at least 2 hours or overnight…… hard to wait!

8 comments:

  1. Tracy, these look wonderful. Great post and photos! Thank you for sharing.

    The Souper

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  2. Oh,.... yes please!!! I'm with you on the Mexican food and I'm definitely a tequila girl. At our local neighborhood gatherings all of my girlfriends usually are drinking Cosmos, but I'm over hanging with the husbands drinking tequila. I think your choice in high end tequila and brand name milk is just fine!! Love this recipe!

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  3. Oh, my LORD...I need some of these pronto! Love these bars...anything with tequila is up my alley!!!

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  4. Um Yum!!!!! Your blog is looking fantastic! Way to go!

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  5. This looks like a great recipe to bring to get togethers. Yum! And you're right that some ingredients you can go cheapo, like the condensed milk, but ingredients like tequila do better with the high quality.

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  6. Tracy-
    This looks like an (adult) twist on lemon bars. Do you think the (currently outrageously expensive) pine nuts were worth it, or would pecans or almonds be just as good?

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  7. @Gail, I think pecans or almonds would be great in this crust.... I used pine nuts from down deep in the bottom of my fridge....left-over from a long time ago..... I refuse to buy any more because of their ridiculous price! What happened??

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