*Sigh* This was not a sexy recipe. The name, the color of the ingredients, the finished product…just–no.

I LOVED the Good Morning Sunshine Bars and I was hoping that these would be a lighter, blonder version of those perfect no-bake yummies. But–nope.

The recipe was very straightforward and easy. Melt the butter, add sugar and cream…eventually finishing up with Fleur de Sel, vanilla, white chocolate and peanut butter. The gooey stuff gets poured over peanuts and crushed pretzels and is supposed to chill into a delicious bar.

I had a bit of an issue early on–I went to put the pretzels in the food processor to chop them up and…nothing. It didn’t start. It was plugged in, everything seemed ok but nothing happened. I panicked thinking my new(ish) giant, beloved food processor was kaput.

Feeling cranky, I put the pretzels in a baggie and crushed them with a rolling pin. I felt like Wilma Flintstone…I love my gadgets. After I crushed the pretzels by hand I realized that part of the top was on backwards. Once I flipped it around, it sprung to life. I had already added the peanuts so I moved on.

I did get to use a new toy–my kitchen scale, a Christmas present from my honey. I hadn’t tried it out yet and I loved it. It’s amazing how completely wrong my estimates turned out to be when trying to eyeball amounts. It was fun to measure out the ingredients exactly, and I thought that my bars would be pretty spot on. The only thing I did differently was use creamy peanut butter. I never buy chunky and I didn’t think as I grabbed a jar for the recipe. I didn’t want to make my own–I was glad to have a simple recipe that didn’t require much effort this time around. I don’t think that substitution mattered much, though.

I finished up last night and covered the pan with plastic wrap to chill overnight. I was looking forward to having one with coffee this morning. They didn’t cut very nicely…the bars were pretty crumbly. I thought that maybe I didn’t coat the mixture evenly enough before pressing into the pan. If I hadn’t have measured everything out exactly I would have thought that my amounts were off. But nevertheless, the bars were pretty disappointing. The color did nothing to make me want to eat them. I thought about drizzling something on top: caramel or white chocolate or even milk or dark chocolate, but they kind of felt like a lost cause.

I tried to use a cookie cutter to cut out a cute heart shape for my picture but got a mound of crumbs instead, so I grabbed the ends of the parchment and tossed the whole thing in the trash. Maybe not getting the pretzels pulverized as much by hand as I would have by machine was part of the problem. Whatever the cause, they just didn’t work out for me.

I left the plate of squares out for my boys and even they weren’t interested. It was surprising that an easy recipe was a bust. Ah, well. Maybe some of my fellow bakers had better luck.

Next up: Lime Angel Food Cake with Lime Glaze. Awesome, I’ve always wanted to make an angel food cake! My boys won’t love the lime, but that’s ok–more for me!