Chocolate & strawberry jam crumble bar

I saw this on the blog Sugar crafter a week or so ago and was intrigued. I added a bit more vanilla, changed up the chocolate chips slightly and added less jam, other than that, the recipe is essentially the same. Also changed the pan as didn't have the same size as the one she used.

Now that I have made this, several variations come to mind that I would like to try.

* Replace chocolate/condensed milk with apple cinnamon filling

* Replace chocolate/condensed milk with caramel, add apple filling

* Replace jam with peanut butter

* Replace the crust with an Oreo or tim tam cookie crumb base

* Replace the crust with the Nestle toll house cookie dough

* Remove chocolate/condensed milk, keep jam, remove chocolate chips, add a strawberry icing. Wow. That brings back memories of a fabulous bar I used to eat all the time growing up in New Zealand.

Anyway.... here is the recipe for the Chocolate & strawberry jam crumble bar

Ingredients:
Base
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Filling
1 cup chocolate chunks
1 can (14 oz) condensed milk
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup strawberry jam

Topping
1/3 of base mixture
1 cup chocolate chunks (I used Cadbury top deck)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 176 degrees C and grease and line a 20 x 20 cm square cake pan. I like to have the baking paper overhang (come up further than the top of the cake pan) so once baked, the bar is easy to remove from the pan without breaking.
The original recipe called for a larger pan, so I also greased and lined a 6 capacity cupcake pan. Turns out this was just right for the quantity of mixture.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and vanilla until creamy. In a seperate bowl, sift in the flour and add the brown sugar. Mix to combine.

Add flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat to combine. Remove 1/3 of the mixture and set aside to use for the crumble topping. With the remaining 2/3 of the dough, press 3/4 into the prepared pan, and the rest divide amongst the cupcake liners.

Place the cake pan and the cupcake pan into the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Remove the cupcake pan, and bake the cake pan for another 3-4 minutes, or until crust is a lovely light golden colour.

For the centre, place the chocolate into a microwave safe bowl. I started off by melting the chocolate in short bursts on medium in the microwave. Make sure you check on it and stir frequently - you don’t want to burn it! When chocolate was ¾ melted I added the condensed milk, and continued microwaving and stirring until fully melted and mixed. Add the vanilla bean paste, and stir to combine. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

Spread jam over the cooled base (in cake and cupcake pans). Pour the chocolate mixture over the jam. Sprinkle remaining dough and top deck chocolate chunks over top of the cake pan and cupcakes.

Place cake pan and cupcake pan in oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Remove cupcake pan, and continue baking cake pan for a further 10 minutes. Let cool before attempting to slice - otherwise you will end up with a crumbly mess. Trust me. Slice, then eat.