When in Doubt, Bake.: Marshmallow Mystery Bars

Marshmallow Mystery Bars

For as long as I can remember, I've been making mystery bars, known to most of the world as seven layer bars. They are one of my family's favorites and are always a hit with my friends, too! They're awesome because you can pretty much put anything you want on them. I almost always use chocolate chips and butterscotch chips, and they're great with just those, but I've also added things such as cereal, granola, candy bars, and now marshmallows to them. The marshmallows might be my favorite addition so far! Besides the crust ingredients and sweetened condensed milk, this recipe won't have exact measurements, because it's really up to you how much of each thing you use. The general idea is to get a layer of each thing. Throughout the directions, I'll bold all possible ingredients that I mention.

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Then, start by melting 6 tbsp of butter on top of the stove in a 13 x 9 pan.

Now, it's time to make the crust. I typically crush 12 graham crackers by putting them in a large Ziploc bag and then smashing them with a rolling pin. It's super fun. However, this time I used fewer graham crackers and added some Nutter Butters to the mix to make it a peanut butter graham cracker crust, and I'd say it was a good decision. Once whatever you use is thoroughly crushed, spread it into the bottom of the pan.

Now it's time to layer on whatever ingredients you choose. I usually do a layer of chocolate chips, then butterscotch chips, then the candy bar pieces, cereal or granola if I'm using any of those.

Then, once all of those are layered, add the majority or all of a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk on top. If you're using marshmallows, add them after putting the sweetened condensed milk on top of the rest of the ingredients, as they don't really need the adhesive properties that the sweetened condensed milk will contribute to the other ingredients. I didn't do this for this recipe but realized after making them that that would make more sense.