Happy National Chocolate Lover's Month with a special UW-Stout inspired recipe

The past few years I have been recreating recipes for the modern day kitchen found in our 1950s Stout’s Favorites cookbooks, and writing about my trials and triumphs via the UW-Stout Archives Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/UWStoutArchives/ . The archives started this blog back in 2012, but with all social media endeavors it takes a lot of time and commitment, and the blog is one endeavor that fell by the wayside. We are trying to revive the blog with new enthusiasm this school year. This is my first attempt at blogging, but I have looked at many recipe blogs and Pioneer Woman cookbooks, and always thought it would be fun to display my cooking and baking efforts that way. I am celebrating Valentine’s Day and National Chocolate Lover’s Month by writing my first ever recipe blog post and recreating one of my favorite dessert recipes that I originally baked back in March of 2016. I combined my love of chocolate and peanut butter to bake Chocodile bars from Stout’s Favorites cookbook, p. 74, available via the Internet Archive at  https://archive.org/details/StoutsFavoritesFirstEdition

Original Recipe, Stout's Favorites, p. 74

The cookbook was published by the Home Economics Club of Stout State College, 1955, featuring favorite recipes of faculty and students, and "dedicated to all those people who enjoy preparing and eating good food.” The recipe was submitted by Louise Grant, a 1959 Senior Dietetics major from Almond, WI. While a student at Stout State College, Grant was involved in many activities including: Young Women’s Christian Association, Stoutonia newspaper, Pallas Athene Sorority, Alpha Phi, Phi Upsilon Omicron, and Dietetic Club.

Louise Grant, 1959 Tower Yearbook, p. 165

I am offering the same cooking tips as last time I baked these bars: You can use a regular baking sheet pan with deep sides vs. a jelly roll pan and I used a whole bag of milk chocolate chips vs. chocolate pieces for the Chocolate Crunch topping. I melted the chocolate and peanut butter together in the microwave vs. on the stove, and then mixed in the cereal. You will need to substitute a different cereal for corn soya cereal. The Kellogg’s company does not make corn soya cereal anymore. This time I used Special K Chocolatey Delight cereal (instead of Special K Oats and Honey cereal like last time), which has wheat and rice flakes with dark chocolate chunks, but you could use almost any cereal that would resemble the scales of a crocodile back, like corn flakes or All Bran cereal. Last time I said if using a corn flake based cereal to break down the flakes some to make the topping easier to spread, and I did not, but I should have. The large flakes and chunky peanut butter make the chocolate topping hard to spread, but it still tastes good. I wish we had smell-a-vision they smell of chocolatey goodness! Happy Chocolate Lovers Month! Bon Appetit!

Mixing the crust ingredients together with a pastry blender

The bars hot out of the oven

Chocolate Crunch topping ingredients: 1 bag of chocolate chips, Special K Chocolatey Delight Cereal, crunch peanut butter (not shown)

The finished product of chocolate and peanut butter goodness! Bon Appetit!