Sunflower Cracker Ube Magic Bars

There’s a certain allure to anything that boasts multi-layers of food in one convenient package. Whether I’m at Trader Joe’s considering adding a 7-layer chip dip to my shopping cart or making this 5-layer magic bar recipe, I’m wrapped up in fantasies of gluttony and the promise of a magical gastronomic experience. I want it all! And I want it now all at once!!! Isn’t that the power of choice that Cold Stone Creamery offers with countless mix-ins at your disposal? It’s quintessentially American to have this freedom, even to a fault. Anyways, I digress.

When I first tried a magic bar in my youth, I thought it’d be a transcendent dessert. As a middle-schooler, I was caught up in the era of scrolling past every iteration of “Better Than Sex” brownies, cakes, you name it on Allrecipes, and feeling utterly disappointed that I was too young to know if these clickbait recipes lived up to the hype. For reference, I wasn’t allowed to date until well after college so there was no way to verify the above claims. Magic bars ended up being this novelty that was pure decadence. It’s an ooey, gooey bar dessert that’s so easy to prepare that I suppose the magical miracle is in its relative simplicity. You can make them with any topping, but the star is luscious condensed milk.

I liked this recipe from Two Sisters Crafting because it was not only straight-forward, but amenable to changes that I wanted to make my own. Also, I never really loved butterscotch chips so I was already down with this 5-layer versus 7-layer magic bar I had as a kid. I always thought that magic bars were a bit too sweet for an everyday dessert, so I opted for swapping out the graham cracker crumbs for a Filipino classic: Sunflower Crackers. I made an ube cheesecake recipe using SkyFlakes as the crust last year, and I used that as the inspiration for this sub. SkyFlakes and Sunflower Crackers are very similar in taste and texture. They’re basically just superior versions of saltine crackers. However, I am partial to the Sunflower Cracker sandwiches filled with strawberry and mango creams.

For this recipe, the saltier components help to temper the sweetness. The roasted peanuts play a major role in the flavor profile of these bars too. With the addition of ube extract in the condensed milk, you’re accentuating the nuttiness of this key component of the dessert. Everything works together seamlessly and my favorite part? No need to bust the stand mixer to whip these up! You can mix everything by hand. And all you have to do is bake it in one 9×13-inch cake pan!

Once you pull these out of the oven, you’ll be tempted to cut into it immediately. But please refrain! It’ll be super messy if you don’t wait for the bars to cool to room temperature. After you take a bite, you’ll realize just how decadent these Sunflower Cracker ube magic bars are. What’s so magical about them? They’re essentially 18 huge servings of candy bars, but name anything “magic” and you start to believe they are too.