Dutch Oven Snickerdoodle Bars

We recently had our bi-annual family reunion. At these reunions, there is always a big auction, where everyone contributes items to sell and the proceeds go toward funding the next reunion. It's kind of a big deal in our family. I posted about this a few years ago here.

Anyway, Jeff and I had a lot of fun at this year's auction, and got all sorts of neat stuff. Our biggest purchase was a dutch oven. It's a 12-inch, 8-quart dutch oven that has obviously been properly cared for and beautifully seasoned. The thing is, I've never cooked anything in a dutch oven. So I've been reading everything online that I can find about how to cook with and care for dutch ovens, and I was finally ready today to give it a try!

This recipe came from a great blog for anyone interested in using a dutch oven. Toni decided that she wanted to try something new, so she committed to cooking in her dutch oven(s) every day for an entire year! Wow! Her first month or two of recipes include helpful tips of things that she was learning along the way, and she has a few other resources scattered throughout that were helpful and encouraging. Plus she graded almost every recipe so you know what was really good and what wasn't good at all. Most of the recipes rated either a B or an A. These cookie bars received an A.

Dutch Oven Snickerdoodle Bars
(from Dutch Oven Madness)
12" dutch oven
2 1/3 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Cinnamon Filling:
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon
Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tbsp. milk

In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl beat the butter until creamy. Beat in the sugars until fully incorporated. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. Add vanilla. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients.

Spread half of the batter on the bottom of a greased 12" dutch oven. Mix together the cinnamon filling ingredients and sprinkle evenly over the batter in the pan. Dollop the remaining batter in teaspoonfuls over the cinnamon filling. Don't worry about it not completely covering the filling - everything will spread out in the oven and have a great marbled look.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely, then mix together the glaze ingredients (adding more milk if it's too thick, or more sugar if it's too thin) and drizzle over the top of the bars.

There are different ways to get the dutch oven to the temperature you want. One popular method is coal counting - for a 12" oven to cook at 350 you would want 16 coals on top and 10 on the bottom. But this doesn't take into account the size of the coals - some are bigger than others. Toni at Dutch Oven Madness prefers the Dinwiddie Ring method, because it allows you to accurately cook with any size coals and makes it so you don't have to count. I chose to use this method and it was easy to figure out, and the bars baked up beautifully.

Dinnwiddie ring method - one ring of coals on the bottom, one and a half rings on top to achieve approximately 350 degrees.

Actually, my cookie bars were slightly undercooked, but that's because I jumped the gun and didn't actually test them for doneness with a toothpick. They could have used a few more minutes, but even underdone, they tasted incredible, and I'm so excited to try more recipes! I don't think I'll be cooking in the dutch oven every single day, but I can say for certain that my new toy will not be put away in a closet only to be brought out for camping. It's too easy and too fun to only be used once or twice a year!

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