Whenever I’m missing Disney, I like to try out a few recipes for a taste of the World. One of my first trips back to WDW was in 2011. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside. I became a little addicted to the Magic Bars. The chocolatey, butterscotchy deliciousness always stuck in my mind. I went back a year later, and the recipe had changed. They had put mini M&Ms on them. The blasphemy!
Thankfully, there are other Disney nuts just as crazy about food. I found THE Port Orleans Magic Bar recipe circa 2011. It was time to get bakin’
Like magic, yumminess comes at a cost. The ingredients, walnuts, and butterscotch were not cheap. A pan of Magic Bars magically made $15 disappear from my wallet… just like Walt Disney World.
For this you will need:
- 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
- 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1 (14-ounce can) Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 6 oz semisweet chocolate morsels
- 1 1/3 cup flaked coconut
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 6 oz butterscotch morsels
The process is pretty straightforward. It’s almost like a dump cake. You do want to melt the butter and mix with the graham cracker crumbs. Make sure to press them down in the bottom of the pan. If you have made a cheesecake crust, it’s kinda the same thing.
Once you have flattened the crumbs down, you pour a can of the Eagle condensed milk over the crumbs. You can carefully use a spatula to spread the milk evenly.
The directions say to layer the ingredients one at a time. Looking back, I think it would be better to mix the coconut, walnut chunks, butterscotch, and chocolate morsels all together. You want to carefully smoosh everything down into the pan. The condensed milk acts like glue to keep everything together.
Once that is all completed, you want to stick it into a preheated 325-degree oven. Bake it until the coconut is slightly brown, or be like me and just leave it too long because Live PD was on TV.
Thankfully, I caught them just in time! The key to the bars is don’t cut them or don’t look at them. The ooey gooey chocolate may tempt you, but you need to resist. They need to be cooked entirely before tasting for “research purposes.”
The result is a waist bustin’ bar that is beyond delicious. I cheated and used a 12×12 pan. They came out bigger and more graham cracker-y than the originals. If I remember correctly, the POR bars were a little flatter and crunchier. This recipe is pretty close to the originals though.
Stay tuned for next week when I try my hand at another recipe. I’m thinking something soupy for the fall season.
Originally published at Kungaloosh Radio