A Feeding Frenzy

Last weekend my roommate and I decided to throw a little "Spring Fling!" In honor of the weather (sort of) being nice and summer in sight, we thought why not! It was also the perfect excuse for me to make a few new recipes - three to be exact! I'll put them in separate posts, but here goes numero uno.

Tequila Bars. Mmm.

I've been meaning to make these for quite sometime, but whenever the time came I always decided on something else... until now! The recipe is from Guy Fieri via the Food Network and I just made a few alterations.

Ingredients
1 12oz box of vanilla wafers (I used reduced fat Nilla Wafers)
1/2 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted
1/3 cup tequila
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
5 large egg yolks, plus 2 egg whites
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 tbsp sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pulse the wafers and pine nuts in a food processor until well ground up. Add the butter and blend until evenly mixed. Set aside 1/4 cup of crumbs; press the rest evenly into a 9x13 baking pan. Bake until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool.
In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk together the tequila, lime juice, egg yolks, and condensed milk.
In another medium bowl, beat the egg whites and sugar with an electric mixer until they hold soft peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the tequila mixture.
Spread the filling evenly over the crust.Bake for 25 minutes. Cool.
Sprinkle the reserved crumbs on top.
Chill in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight before cutting.

The final product? Pretty good - very sweet! I had a hard time pulsing the wafers and pine nuts, probably since I don't have a food processor I had to make a blender work. Not as easy as I thought it would be. Also, as I write this, I realized I did not melt the butter before mixing it with the crumbs. That will probably explain why my crust mixture was much more doughy than crumby. But alas, despite all that these came out great! Very limey, not so tequilay. I personally liked the crust part better than the topping, it was just a little too sweet. For me, at least. But I think this may be the most challenging recipe I've ever made! Woohooo!


As far as servings and points... the original said cut into 16 bars, but I cut it into 21 squares instead. Makes it about 6 pts/square.