Almost-candy bars Mr. Tidbit hesitates to admit that, dessert-centered as he is, he never noticed the Betty Crocker Reese's no-bake dessert-bar mix. But now that it has grown two "limited edition" appendages, he couldn't miss it. All three no-bake mixes consist of a crumb crust, a filling based on a Hershey candy (the two new versions are Heath Toffee Bits and Almond Joy) and a "chocolaty topping."
In each case, all you add is butter and water. You press the crumb and filling layers into the supplied plastic pan, squeeze on the topping and refrigerate. Note that the pan is pretty small -- about 7 by 6 inches (about half the area of a 9-inch square pan). Note also that the bars are pretty rich: If you cut the prepared mix into 12 small bars, as the box suggests, they are smaller than the "enlarged to show detail" bars in the photo on the box, but each has from 9 to 12 grams of fat, around 190 calories and from 13 to 21 grams of sugar. But they're pretty good.
Rolling along Over at the Pillsbury part of General Mills, the tubes of refrigerated dough are showing up in several new forms. Crescent Recipe Creations is the familiar crescent-roll dough without the perforations that separate it into individual triangles. Previously if you wanted an unsullied sheet of crescent-roll dough, you had to smoosh the perforations shut. Now you don't have to.
There's also a new thin version of the pizza crust and something called Flaky Twists with Chocolate Icing. For that one, you braid each of the eight strips of cinnamon-coated dough, bake them 11 to 15 minutes, cool 2 minutes and glaze them with the little tub of icing. Warning: There's too much icing in the little tub. If you use anywhere near most of it, the twists will be dripping with it and impossible to eat neatly. (On the other hand, is that really a problem?)
AL SICHERMAN