Traci's Almond-Chococonut Bars

Traci's birthday falls on a Friday the 13th this year, but the only thing scary about it is the amount of calories I managed to fit into her dessert! She said she would like something that resembled an Almond Joy candy bar and it didn't matter what it was. She just wanted it to have coconut, chocolate, and almonds as part of it's ingredients.

I checked around the web and a few cookbooks and eventually settled on a recipe in the Cake Doctor's Chocolate Lovers cookbook called, "Joy of Almonds" Bars. Unfortunately I made a tiny error when I was at the grocery store and ended up buying condensed milk instead of evaporated! So I had to scramble and get creative. I ended up tweaking the dessert and I think it came out pretty good. It's definitely Almond-Joy-ee!

Happy Birthday Traci - I hope you enjoy your dessert!

Almond Chococonut Bars

• 1 box of Devil's food cake cake mix
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Prepare as indicated on the box but add the almond extract at the same time you add the eggs. Pour into prepared jelly-roll pan. Bake at 350F for about 12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the cake clean. Cool. Keep the oven on.

• bag of sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 can of condensed milk
• 20 big marshmallows

Put the condensed milk into a small medium sized saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium heat. Stir often so that the bottom of the pan doesn't burn and turn the milk into caramel. Add the marshmallows and continue mixing until the marshmallows are completely melted. Add the coconut and mix well. Spoon the coconut mixture over the cooked the cake and put it back in the oven for 8 minutes. Cool. (Turn off oven) .

• 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup of chopped almonds

In small bowl, melt chocolate chips in the microwave for a minute at a time and mix well. Continue until completely melted. Drizzle over bars. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.