Gooey Butter Shortbread Bars for #FoodnFlix

Butter gets a bad rap....Not just the delicious creamy stuff made from cow's milk that we are told is fattening, cholesterol raising and unhealthy by those people that make margarine from chemicals and hydrogenated oil and may cause cancer.

I think I'll stick to the butter, thank you, and serve it proudly along with olive oil, coconut oil and other oils made from things found in nature and not in some laboratory.

Another Butter that got a bad rap was the movie starring Ty Burrell, Ashley Green, Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, Yara Shahidi and others.  The critics were not crazy about this movie but, like the manufacturer's who make margarine...I take their opinions with a grain of salt.

I love butter...the food and I liked Butter....the movie.  It was hokey but it was also touching.  It is the story of butter carving at the Iowa State Fair but it is also the story of a rocky marriage, of placing winning above people, of a young orphan girl who not only finds a family who loves her but also finds that there are things at which she excels.  I enjoyed it.  I laughed and I cried.  I would not have gone to the theater to see this movie nor would I buy the dvd but I would stop channel surfing for it.

Our host this month for Food n Flix is the incomparable Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz.  Evelyne explains how she chose the movie and how you can join us in her announcement post.

There was food in the movie....butter, of course, and fair fare along with a pretty nice looking roasted chicken.  But when you are assigned a movie to watch with only one word in the title and that word is Butter...I kind of think you should create a recipe using butter.  I almost just made butter but my friend Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures beat me to it.

I thought about making honey butter and combining this post with my Cook the Books post but then decided I wanted to make something different for Cook the Books.

Hmmm....garlic butter maybe?  Butter cookies?  Buttered Popcorn?  Buttery, gooey caramel?  What to do, what to do??

I normally use Land of Lakes butter around here so I went to their website to see what they had to say. They had a lot to say. Many, many wonderful recipes.  And then I saw this one for Gooey Shortbread Bars.  I had to make it...it had the words Gooey and Shortbread in the title!

You line the baking pan with foil.

I then just lifted the foil out to allow it to cool completely.

I had originally thought to cut the bars into shapes so as to mimic the carving in the movie.

I decided that was too much work and was going to lead to waste.

These little morsels are MUCH to tender and delicious to waste!!

Gooey Butter Shortbread Bars

very slightly adapted  from Landolakes.com

For the Crust:
1 c, flour
1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
1/3 c. powdered sugar

For the Topping:
2 T. light corn syrup
1 T. water
1 t. vanilla
6 T. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. + 2 T. flour

Heat oven to 350*.  Line an 8" square baking pan with aluminum foil and then spray the foil with cooking spray.

Combine the crust ingredients in a bowl and beat at medium speed until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Press evenly into bottom of foil lined pan.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes.

Combine syrup, water and vanilla in a small bowl.  Mix well and set aside.

Place 6 T. of butter and sugar in a med. bowl and beat until well mixed.  Alternate adding flour and syrup mixture beating after each addition.  Spread over crust and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from oven and lift foil out of the pan.  Let cool completely before cutting into 24 bars. Print Recipe

 Want to join Food n Flix?  Learn how.

Christine from Cherishing a Sweet Life stopped by and invited me to link up with #OhMyHeartsieGirlWWlinkup.  I checked it out, liked what I saw and linked up.  Why don't you meet me there and we can look at some of these great posts together?