Brown Sugar Bars with Meringue Salted Peanut Topping

A tasty blonde bar topped with a brown sugar meringue.

Ingredients

Bars

2 cups flour

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 cup butter softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

3 egg yolks

1 T milk

1 t vanilla

Meringue

3 egg whites room temperature

1/2 cup baking sugar(super fine)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup dry roasted salted peanuts

Directions

Oven 325º  13″ by 9″ pan buttered Stand mixer or hand mixer with whisk attachment.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in bowl and set aside.Cream butter and sugars and blend in the egg yolks, milk, and vanilla. Add in dry ingredients and combine. Spread evenly in  buttered baking pan.

Pour egg whites into stainless steel or glass bowl and beat slowly for a minute. Then increase speed to high until soft peaks form. Add superfine sugar while beating in fourths. Then sprinkle the brown sugar like snow over the meringue mixture until stiff and glossy peaks form. Gently fold in peanuts and spread over the bar mixture with a spatula. Bake 25-30 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Note: We serve these all the time at parties. If peanuts are a known problem the meringue can be made without the peanuts. I am considering toffee chips as a peanut replacement. Have not done it yet.