Homemade Butterfinger Bars I Made It

Homemade Butterfinger Bars

pointsevenout 12 years ago
Recipe by Jo_jo_ba: Homemade Butterfinger Bars
My first attempt at candy bars.
Quite a simple recipe unless one tries to make it from scratch.
Doesn't really taste like a butterfinger, from my memories long long since past. But it has the general makeup. A tough center but not quite as brittle as a butterfinger. One has to let it melt in the mouth as opposed to crunching down.
Recipe is open to a lot of variations.
Used Candy Corn by Sharyl4 for the from scratch candy corn. Didn't put any food coloring in it just to save on expense. The candy corn sets up hard so one has to measure out the cup and a half fresh and hot from the pot. The candy corn recipe makes about twice the amount needed.
Used 1 cup pecans for the nut butter and a food processor to grind them to a butter consistency. It takes about 15 minutes to get the job done. Makes 3/4 cup nut butter. Half cup for the recipe and I think I'll make some PB&J sammies later.
Used some old honey nut cheerios that were getting hard. Ground them up nicely.
On the chocolate, first off, I learned that cocoa powder cannot be reconstituted as baking chocolate squares. After two attempts to cheap it out with the cocoa powder I broke down and bought some real baking chocolate.
While researching how reconstitute cocoa powder I stumbled on some instructions on how to temper chocolate. Don't know that store bought baking chocolate needs to be tempered but did it anyhow.
This recipe cut up into 14 bars and only had enough chocolate to coat 7 of them. Might be my attempt at tempering the chocolate that made the difference. So I've got 7 naked candy bar centers left. Next time I hit the store I'll pick up some more chocolate.
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mommyluvs2cook 12 years ago said:

I never would have associated candy corn with butterfingers! Cool! My daughter would have so much fun making these with me! I think I'll use store bought candy corns though ;)

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sparow64 12 years ago said:

A couple of tips that might help next time, P7O:
How did you get 14 bars? Jojoba's recipe calls for using a loaf pan...?
The candy corn...if you started with 1 1/2 c in liquid state, you didn't have the right amount. Her recipes calls for 1 1/2 c candy corn, then, that is the amount you melt in the microwave...kinda like 1 1/2 c chopped nuts is not the same amount as 1 1/2 c nuts, chopped. The first is to be measured after chopping, and the second is to be measured before chopping.
My recipe calls for 6 c cornflakes, crushed...I don't grind them into powder with the food processor...that wouldn't give a butterfinger-ish consistency...did you grind the ceral into powder? (The instructions will call for you to do that when powder is the way to go)
And no, you do not need to temper baking chocolate...I don't know if that made a big difference or not, but, no recipes call for tempering of baking chocolate that I have seen. I'm pretty sure she means chocolate chips in her recipe, especially since she says "semi-sweet". That's what mine calls for, (also posted), and even though she doesn't say chips, it sounds like that's what she means. I have never seen baking chocolate used in an icing or a coating. If you want to use cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips, look for a ganache recipe using cocoa, that will be the closest thing to the melted chocolate chip coating, although not exactly the same.

Just some ideas that might make it even better for you next time. My recipe is reminiscent of butterfingers, but, not exactly like the candy bar, either.

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sparow64 12 years ago said:

oh yeah...you could also melt some of the chocolate bark that is used in candy making...but that wouldn't be as cheap as chocolate chips...unless you found it on sale or have some leftover. : )

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pointsevenout 12 years ago said:

Yeah, I can see where powdering the cereal could make the filling more dense. Yes I did powder the cereal. Next time I'll just put it in a baggie and take the tenderizer mallet to it to make larger chunks.
I got all the measurements right. Pressed the candy into an 9x5 loaf pan lined with parchment paper.
Cutting out just 7 bars would have made them huge. Besides Jo said it was 7 servings, which is not necessarily 7 bars but one would think it would be 7.
Actually I got 16 bars out of it. Cut the main block in half so the bars would be 4.5" long, which is a nice length for a candy bar. Halved the half block then the quarter blocks then the eighth blocks to make a nice size candy bar. You can see by the picture they're not on the smallish size.
I see what you mean about the 1 1/2c candy corn. I used a candy corn recipe that gave me liquid candy corn and I did measure out 1 1/2c liquid (actually it was a plastic solid until I nuked it).
So I used too much liquid candy corn which probably gave me the extra bulk in the loaf pan.
The info I have collected so far on the chocolate is that when it is used as an ingredient in a standard recipe just melting is fine but when using to coat candy bars tempering is required to grow the right kind of B crystal structure to give the chocolate the sheen and snap for a nice candy bar coating.
Hey, what do I know! Just started learning about chocolate less than a week ago.
Thanks for the input.

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sparow64 12 years ago said:

oh wow...more research on the baking chocolate than I would've done. lol Good to know you can sub it for the choc chips!

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frankieanne 12 years ago said:

That looks like a real candy experiment!

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pointsevenout 12 years ago said:

Do a video internet search on " tempering chocolate". There are some pretty good videos and some lame ones too. There are three methods, by microwave, by marble block, and by double boiler. I used the double boiler method.

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