No Butter! Chocolate Tom Thumb Bars???

Last night I finally got to leave work early. After 2-3 weeks of long days, I snuck away at 4:00. With a storm moving in, threatening to turn Houston's already horrible rush hour traffic into a nightmare, I really wanted to get ahead of the game. Of course, others had the same idea and it still took me 1.5 hours to get home. But, I got home at 5:30 and was done eating dinner by 7 (which is earlier than I even get home some nights). I work from home on Monday's and Friday's so Thursday nights are always a little more laid back and we tend to stay up a little later than normal.

I really had the urge to BAKE. I had not used my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer in a couple of weeks and was starting to have withdrawals from it. I knew I had some chocolate chips so I thought I would whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies using the recipe on the bag. Then it hit me...

I HAD NO BUTTER!

Thats right, I had no stick butter or even any margarine. What kind of southern girl allows herself to have a refrigerator without any BUTTER in it. Paula Deen and her "Everything's Better With Butter" self would definitely be disappointed in me.

I started searching the internet for cookie recipes that didn't require butter but didn't have much luck. I posted a message on the local Houston Nest message board for help. One of the "Nesties" (thanks Kris) found this recipe for me -- Chocolate Tom Thumb Bars. I had all the necessary ingredients so heck... why not. I was slightly worried about the "meringue" part as I have never made meringue but it sounded easy enough.

Things started off alright. I got all the dry ingredients mixed together using my KA Mixer.

The dough wasn't as "doughy" as I expected and it didn't taste as good as normal chocolate chip cookie dough (which, in my opinion, is a little gift from Heaven) but it was okay so I pressed on.

I got the dough pressed out into a 9x13 inch pan.

Then I started on the meringue. The recipe instructed to beat the egg whites until they started to have peaks. This went well and after a bit I was getting decent peaks. Then I added the brown sugar as instructed and started beating the egg-sugar mixture. After what felt like forever (I didn't time it, I am impatient so it could have been 2 minutes, could have been 10) I was getting no peaks, no stiffness, nothing. I finally gave up on getting peaks and just spread it over the top of the dough and put it in the oven.

As you can see, the meringue does not look like meringue at all but I was tired of waiting and Ryan was asking for his dessert he had been promised.

After 20 minutes of baking, the meringue had risen a little and was turning brown so I pulled the pan out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes.

Then I cut in and found a oooey gooey mess. The inside of the cookie part was not cooked, at all. So I put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

At this point, Ryan was whining for dessert (in a really cute and sweet way) and was just as skeptical as me about the outcome of my baking project. So, I made him a Chocolate Covered Strawberry Milk Shake.

And that was a success!

Back to the oven... I could see it had cooked a little more but was skeptical at this point. I pulled it out of the oven again. I scooped out a piece for Ryan and one for me.

It was still pretty gooey in the middle and the flavor was just ... blah. That's all I can say. I think with BUTTER and not shortening, this would have been better. And maybe cooking the cake some before putting the meringue on top? Or maybe if the meringue had gotten stiff and peaky it would have been better?

I ended up thrown the whole 9x13 pan of it down the disposal. What a shame!

I have learned that I should always keep some butter in the freezer so that I don't run into situations like these in the future.