This Is My New Favorite Sweet Treat To Enjoy With My Morning Coffee

I often bake when I can’t sleep, whether at midnight, or when I wake up hours before my morning alarm. I don’t typically embark on an arduous baking project, but will do something simple that can serve as a late-night snack or breakfast treat. That’s how I stumbled upon my new favorite cookie bar recipe, the Raspberry Mazurkas in Yossy Arefi’s new cookbook Snacking Bakes. 

I always have a backlog of new cookbooks I've been meaning to get to, and usually end up flipping through them in the wee hours of the morning/night.

With only 8 ingredients, most of which were pantry staples, I already had everything I needed on hand to try out the Raspberry Mazurkas. (Which was a good thing, because my local Piggly Wiggly doesn’t open until 7 a.m.)

The stir-together bars also require just one bowl. The only hard part was remembering to open the microwave door just before the timer sounded while melting the butter, so I didn’t wake up my sleeping boyfriend. Yes, I could have used the stovetop, but at 5 a.m., you reach for shortcuts. 

After preheating the oven, and prepping your pan, all you really have to do is combine the dry ingredients (a tasty combination of oats, brown sugar, flour, chopped walnuts or pecans, and shredded coconut) before stirring in melted butter to form a crumbly dough. All but one cup is pressed into a square baking pan, which is topped with raspberry preserves (or apricot, if you prefer), followed by the remaining dough mixture crumbled over top. The bars bake for around 40 minutes—plenty of time to make coffee and change out of pajama bottoms. 

Although Arefi recommends cooling the bars completely, I dug in while they were still a little warm, and have no regrets. The bar edges baked up beautifully crisp, while a soft, and slightly tangy jam layer cuts through the sweetness of the brown sugar cookie base. It’s no wonder these bars were a staple of ‘90s coffee carts in Seattle (where the author is from), because they’re a perfect match for a cup of black coffee. 

The recipe also happens to be fairly flexible, for those of you, like me, who can never leave well enough alone. On a second go-around I substituted cherry preserves for the raspberry jam, and almonds for the walnuts, with just as delicious results. But give the original a try first, because it’s pretty magical as-is. 

Raspberry Mazurkas

"Growing up, my mom owned a kids clothing and toy store in a cute neighborhood in Seattle. I’d often tag along with her to work, mostly because there was a coffee cart across the street run by two lovely sisters where we’d stop for a little something on the way in. She’d get a vanilla latte, I would get a steamed milk, and then we’d usually share a treat. Sometimes it was a peach/passion fruit scone, sometimes a Pink Cookie, and sometimes a nubbly little jam bar called a mazurka. I’ve never seen a mazurka outside of the coffee cart, but a little bit of research led me to learn that they are sometimes called Polish wedding cookies and were very popular in ’90s Seattle."