Cookies for a Cause: Pecan Bars

I was thinking for a while about baking for charities and I often bring in extra baked goods into work, and eventually I came up with the idea of Cookies for a Cause! Not that I personally checked all of them but a few charitable organizations will not allow homemade baked goods to be donated. (I have checked into sending baked goods overseas to soldiers, etc) They'd rather just have the money or store-bought items, which is great, but I like the bake darn it!

If you haven't noticed, I like to try new recipes so I had been trying to figure out how I can do something good for the world with this hobby and finally came up with the idea of Cookies for a Cause! The idea is that I am going to periodically pick out a recipe that I'd like to try, bring them into work and put a donation out next to the cookies. I will not keep any of the money donated to offset my costs: my time and ingredients purchased are my contribution. 100% of the money raised will go to a charity that I've chosen.

I only have had a chance to do this once so far, and the inaugural recipe was Pecan Bars from the Martha Stewart Cookie Book, in which I have earmarked several "To Bake" recipes. If you love pecan pie, you'll die for these bars. They were rich, sweet, salty, buttery... a great combination of a buttery shortbread base with a caramel and pecan topping, my oh my! Here is a great blog post and recipe posted here, at Every Last Cookie's Blog. I made a double batch and it filled up a tiny 8x6 pan and 11x17 and I cut them into 30 hefty cookies, I wanted to be generous to hopefully encourage more donations! The cost of the cookies for me was around $16 due to the pecans, but that is my donation and I wasn't looking to make that money back in any way.

While I work in a secured area, there was a little concern of some money being stolen out of my donation jar so next time I might keep it at my desk (though it is a little awkward as I believe donations should be private as I don't want to pressure anyone). Otherwise, I think the event went great and I raised $17 for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit, an awesome charity that my husband's grandmother loved during her life. It may not sound like much but I know it will add up over time if this works out. My coworkers can skip the vending machine and we can help out. There are so many charities that it is very hard to pick just one, so I hope that I can bake cookies every few weeks and that by the end of 2009, I will really have made a difference for some one!