Chocolate Chip, Coconut Walnut Blondie Paradise Pie Bars

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• What is a Paradise Pie?
• Ingredients
• How to Make a Paradise Pie Bar
• FAQs
• Coconut Walnut Blondie Pie

What is a Paradise Pie?

I'm not sure how many of you have been to Chili's or, if you have, have tried Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie. If you haven't, I'll try to paint a bit of a picture for you. Imagine a large layered square - like a huge blondie, but with a graham cracker crust, walnuts, coconut and chocolate chips. All warmed through, topped with ice cream and a drizzle of caramel and chocolate sauce. It is easily the best dessert ever - or at least that's my humble opinion. It was removed from the menu years ago, made a brief come back and seems to have gone again. Unfortunately for me, even if it was still available, there are no Chili's Restaurant chains near me in Britain anyway.

Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time over the years daydreaming of the paradise pie. This finally culminated with trying to make my own version of the epic treat! The following recipe is a bit of a work in progress, capturing the main flavours that made the dessert my fave! I would welcome feedback if anyone will recipe test!

Ingredients

This recipe is divided into two main sections: the cookie crumb base of the bars and then the blondie.

For the Base

• Butter - unsalted butter, melted. You can use salted butter here, especially if you are used to baking with salted butter. The salt may add a bit of a salty flavour, but this is not usually significant.
• Lotus Biscoff cookie crumbs - these cookie crumbs add a caramelised flavor to the recipe. You can also use graham cracker crumbs here.
• Chocolate chips - I like using semi-sweet chocolate morsels, but you can also use dark chocolate or milk chocolate here.

For the Blondies

• Butter - unsalted butter, melted. Microwave in short 10 second bursts until melted through or melt in a small pan on the stovetop over medium heat. You'll need this divided - some for the blondie and some for the biscuit base.
• Light brown sugar - also known as muscovado sugar. Measurements are always firmly packed for brown sugar.
• Superfine granulated sugar - or caster sugar. You can also use standard granulated here, but I like to use a fine grind of sugar in baking.
• Eggs - 1 whole egg and 1 yolk.
• Vanilla extract - I'm obsessed with vanilla extracts and will always urge you to use the best quality! Vanilla comes through in bakes and a good quality vanilla will add to the overall flavor of your creations.
• Flour - all purpose flour or plain flour will work in this recipe.
• Cornstarch - in the UK this is called cornflour (but US cornflour is a completely different ingredient, so don't try to substitute in the US with cornflour here!!).
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Chopped walnuts
• Sweetened flaked coconut - you can use dessicated coconut, however, this is not as sweet and usually less flavorful than the sweetened shredded coconut.
• Note: You could use different add-ins (like pecans instead of walnuts or butterscotch morsels instead of chocolate chips), but these are the flavours of the original and my personal faves.
• Caramel - or toffee sauce, to drizzle on the top.

How to Make a Paradise Pie Bar

1. Line the Pan

The first step in making my Paradise Pie tray bake is to line the pan. This recipe is suited to an 8" square brownie pan. In order to more easily remove the bake at the end, I'd strongly recommend lining this with parchment paper. Lining a square tin is quite straightforward. It is best accomplished by cutting two long rectangles, 8" wide and about 15" long - enough to overhang the edges. Criss-cross these in the pan, to avoid having to press awkwardly in the corners.

2. Chocolate Covered Cookie Crust

Once lined, pre-heat your oven. In a small bowl, mix together your cookie crumbs and the melted butter for the base. You are looking for this to be a bit of a packable consistency, like you would for a cheesecake base. Press this into the bottom of your lined tin. Over the top, add one cup of chocolate chips. Place this in your oven as this preheats for about 10 minutes. It doesn't matter if the oven is at temperature yet - this is just to help melt your chocolate chips. Once softened, spread them over the cookie crumb base with a spatula and set aside.

3. Coconut Walnut Blondies

In a large bowl, whisk or beat together the melted butter and your sugars until fully combined and emulsified (about 2 minutes). Add your egg, yolk and vanilla, incorporating fully. In a separate bowl, mix together your dry ingredients: the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Add this to your sugar mixture, beating to combine. Finally, fold in your chopped walnuts and coconut, reserving a small bit of each for decoration at the end.

Pour your batter into the tin and spread evenly over the base. I found that spooning dollops onto the melted chocolate helps to keep this more even - otherwise, the melted chocolate will be pushed out from under the batter and may pool in patches on your base.

Place your pan in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean. I like my blondies and brownies on the gooier side, so it is fine for them to be a bit underdone in the toothpick testing stage, but try to ensure that the centre is well past being liquid or you will have trouble cutting!

Tip: it is actually best to allow blondies and brownies to cool completely before slicing. This means they can set up as fudgy without being too messy to handle!

4. Finishing Touches

Once you remove your pie from the oven, leave this to cool in the tray. I would recommend cooling completely to help preserve the structure and shape. While cooling, you can top this with a drizzle of caramel or toffee sauce and the reserved walnuts and coconut.

When ready, remove this from the tin by pulling up the lining - the bake should lift out easily in one go. Place this on a plate and slice into desired pieces. It is pretty sweet and rich, so I would suggest slicing into 16 pieces.

For serving, a piece warmed up with some ice cream wouldn't go amiss! Or eaten room temperature, they make for an excellent breakfast, dessert or snack. Based on experience, they keep relatively well for a few days, airtight at room temperature to preserve them best.

FAQs

If you like this recipe, you might also like:

• Ferrero Rocher Brownies
• Samoas Brownies
• Chocolate Walnut Cake
• Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Chocolate Coconut Macaroons