Baking for Toronto Bakes For Japan

This past weekend Toronto was host to one heck of a bake sale. Toronto Bakes For Japan brought together amateur and professional bakers selling their sweet and tasty wares across the city with proceeds going to Japan relief efforts.

I happily volunteered to bake for the event, and after flipping through my cookbooks I decided on two recipes from my favourite baking resource of late, Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy: Toffee Bars and Cinnamon-Dusted Blondies.

I started with the Toffee Bars, which were definitely the more time-consuming of the two but completely worth it. You start by pressing a shortbread base into a 13x9-inch pan and sprinkling it with pecans. That gets baked for about 20 minutes, while at the same time you prepare the toffee topping. Once the base comes out, you spread the hot toffee over the pecans, put the pan back in to the oven for another 12 minutes or so until the toffee bubbles and darkens.