Raspberry White Chocolate Magic Bars

My girls and I had a few friends over to play last week and I wanted to make a sweet treat to share. I had made these for a holiday cookie exchange and figured they would be just about right for a Valentine’s Day treat, too. The bars were a huge hit with the playgroup and my husband was very excited by their reappearance. They also pair well with a nice glass of white wine for when the kids have gone to bed.

Magic bars were a family tradition around my house when I was growing up, and they are now. I was delighted to find tons of fun variations while searching Pinterest. The original post for the raspberry magic bars is good and I have found myself going back to check out what else Trish on “Mom on Timeout” has posted. I did make a few changes to fit my personal preference which is why I decided to share my version.

Raspberry White Chocolate Magic Bars

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

6 Tbsps melted butter

1 Tbsp sugar

3 cups sweetened coconut flakes

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2- 2 cups raspberry preserves

1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix graham cracker crumbs and sugar together then stir in the melted butter. Press into the bottom of a parchment lined 9 x 13 baking pan.

3. Layer the coconut flakes and semisweet chocolate chips on top of the crust. Place in oven and back for 20-25 minutes or until the coconut has browned slightly.

4. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Turn the oven off.

5. Spread raspberry preserves on top. Sprinkle the white chocolate chips on top of the preserve layer.

6. Place back in the cooling oven for 10 minutes or until the chocolate is softened.

7. Remove from oven and use a knife to swirl the softened chocolate across the top of the preserves.

Valentine’s Decorations

When I was taking down the Christmas decorations, my 4-year-old started crying when I got to the trees. She said she loved them and they were beautiful and that we should just leave them up all year. I tried to explain that part of the wonder of the decorations was that they were only up for a little while. That this is what makes them special and we’d be decorating for Valentine’s Day soon enough. The compromise we made was that we could turn the little playroom tree into a Valentine’s Day tree. Grammie sent the girls ornaments they could make for decorating the tree and we used a garland we had from last year. So the tree lives on for now. (I do wonder how it will go over at the end of month when I finally take the tree down.)

After the girls and I finished the tree, my mom’s group had a craft night. (Arts and crafts, not craft beer like my husband thought, we did that one last month.) The holiday decorations continued and we made a button heart on canvas as well as word blocks. Many thanks to the talents of our hostess of the event. Now I was feeling inspired to add more decorations to the house. I pulled out the few items we had, but didn’t have anything to use on the fireplace mantle. Having wanted to try my hand at the mesh garlands all over Pinterest and the craft stores this seemed like the right opportunity.

I read a blog, had studied several of these garlands and wreaths in the stores and all over Pinterest, so I felt like this would be a fairly easy project. Those are always famous last words. I used a store bought garland as the base and attached the mesh with pipe cleaners I cut in half. The challenge came in with bending and bunching the mesh. I started out lining everything up nice and even. First I attached the middle then went and attached both ends and was trying to work in, but wasn’t getting the desired look. So I scrapped all the even measurements and just free-handed it. I used my hand as a basic guide and tried to eyeball the size of the mesh loop. I think that the problem was that my garland didn’t have the ties already attached and it wasn’t a wire base. My end result doesn’t look anything like the professional ones. Looks like I’ll have to make more as I work on this skill.

Links use:

Word Blocks

Button Heart

Mesh Garland

Valentines’ Day ornaments at Michael’s Craft Store