I made Dump Bars.
You heard me.
I know, nothing with the word “Dump” in the title sounds at all appetizing, but really, what’s in a name?
I don’t have many memories of my maternal grandmother as she died when I was six years old. But I do remember some of her recipes. I’ve always remembered Dump Bars because of their unfortunate name. But I couldn’t quite remember their look or taste as it has been years since I’ve had them.
I was visiting my parents last week and I was copying a few recipes that my mom had in her arsenal. As we were paging through her old and tattered “church” cookbook, I spotted a loose piece of paper with the recipe for Dump Bars and decided to add it to the list of recipes to copy.
They are incredibly easy and turned out great.
The name comes from the process of mixing them. You dump all the ingredients into your bowl at once and mix. You don’t even need an electric mixer. A plain old spoon is all you need.
One of Bob’s friends from work invited us over for a 4th of July cookout and I wanted to bring something. I needed something that came together easy and I already had all of the ingredients in the house. It took less than an hour from start to finish. And they were a big hit with everyone.
For some reason I have a memory of them being more like a chocolate chip cookie bar. But after mixing things together, I realized they are much more brownie like—only not quite as dense as a typical brownie. Regardless, they were good. And there wasn’t much left of that pan by the end of the night.
Dump Bars
2 cups sugar
1 & 3/4 cups flour
5 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup chocolate chipsDump all ingredients, except chocolate chips, into a large mixing bowl. Stir until all ingredients are moistened and well-combined.
Spread in greased 9×13 inch cake pan.
Sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Do not stir in.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Cool completely before serving.
Clearly not the healthiest of recipes…five eggs and a whole cup of oil…but that’s probably why they tasted so good.
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