Picnic Congo Squares

Cooking well doesn’t mean cooking fancy.

— Julia Child

Warm, summer days bring so many sweet memories and many are inspired by finding a special recipe that was an important part of my childhood.

I was searching through my wooden recipe box the other day for a quick and easy treat to wrap as teacher gifts. As I thumbed through the clippings and cards for just-the-right thing (no cupcakes because the frosting will melt, cookies take too long, muffins are, well, glorified cupcakes), the edge of a yellowed envelope caught my eye. This envelope held my oldest family recipes that were handed down to me from grandmas, great aunts, and my mom. Gramma’s recipe for sour cream cookies is carefully written in script on old note paper from a feed and seed company so old, the phone number is 433-W2. Some recipes are nothing but an ingredient list, so first I must solve the riddle of what is made from mashed potatoes, flour, eggs and Cream of Wheat. (Ah yes, dumplings.) All the slips and small newspaper bits listing the ingredients of warm fragrances and good food that stood the test of time.

Then I found it: the small, yellowed newspaper clipping held to a handwritten note by a slightly rusted paper clip. Mom had jotted the note on a hotel notepad, informing me “I won a contest on these Congo Squares – Make them in a jelly roll pan – Enjoy. The little recipe from an old newspaper cooking contest does indeed feature her name and our first home address. These small-town contests afforded certain bragging rights around the coffee table and I smiled to think about mom searching through the paper and seeing her name in print below her family’s favorite bar. (That term may be regional to the Midwest; ‘bar’ was a sweeping generalization much like ‘cookie.’ There could be a hundred ways to make them, but they were always called bars.)

Congo Squares were a part of every picnic, family reunion, fishing trip, and camping weekend because they were sturdy in the heat and able to keep their yummy, crispy top over a long, outdoorsy weekend. Mom would bake a batch or two the morning of our adventures, then they were cut into squares, layered between sheets of wax paper, and tucked into an old Tupperware box.

I was curious about the somewhat odd and slightly exotic name, so I did a bit of investigating. According to a few sources, a Congo Square is a blondie with the name inspired by the Congo Room of Las Vegas and, of all places, the Congo Room of Canton, Ohio. We don’t know if these were served as dessert in the clubs, but that seems probable as these bars date back to the 1950s. And a final suggestion — you might look at the ingredients and wince at the amounts. Just throw caution to the wind and follow the recipe. These bars are chewy and delightfully dense, with gooey bits of chocolate in every bite.

What you need:

2 1/4 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter

2 1/4 cups brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup broken nuts (optional, but we use walnuts)

1 6 oz. package (a heaping cup) chocolate chips

What you do:

1. Mix or sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Melt butter and add brown sugar, then stir until well mixed. Allow to cool
3. Add eggs into butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Add dry ingredients, then nuts and chocolate chips.
5. Stir to combine well.
6. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan and bake at 350˚ for 25 to 30 minutes.

The featured image is courtesy of Annie Nardone and used with gracious permission for Cultivating and The Cultivating Project. 

Annie Nardone

Annie Nardone is a lifelong bibliophile with a special devotion to the Inklings and medieval authors. She is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute and holds an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University. Annie is the Director of Visual Artists for The Cultivating Project and columnist for Cultivating Magazine. She is founding board member, managing editor, and author for the apologetics quarterly, An Unexpected Journal. Her writing can also be found as travel blogger for Clarendon Press U.K., with published poems at Calla Press and Poetica.

She holds a MA in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University, and is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute. Annie writes for Cultivating, Literary Life, and Clarendon House Books, and is a managing editor and writer for An Unexpected Journal. Annie collaborated on three books in 2022, published by Square Halo Books and The Rabbit Room. She recently designed a curriculum detailing the intersection of theology, the arts, and history and is a Master Teacher for HSLDA. She resides in Florida with her Middle Earth/Narnia/Hogwarts-loving family, and an assemblage of sphynx cats and feline foundlings.

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