Hello Dollies

These Hello Dolly bars—also known as seven-layer bars (recipes with 1 cup butterscotch chips as well as chocolate chips), coconut dream bars, or magic cookie bars—are made with a combination of semisweet chocolate and sometimes butterscotch chips. On Eagle Brand's website they call them Magic Cookie Bars, and with the butterscotch chips added, Seven-layer Bars.

The Hello Dolly name appears to be a reference to the Broadway musical, "Hello, Dolly!" which was a popular musical when these bars were created in the mid-1960s. The bars are assembled in six layers, and they are incredibly delicious. They come together like magic, because drizzled condensed milk holds the layers together.

There's very little preparation involved since it's just a matter of layering ingredients and popping them in the oven. You can change them up a bit by replacing the butterscotch chips with more chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee chips, or white chocolate chips; or make dulce de leche with sweetened condensed milk and drizzle it on the bars for added tastiness.

See below for alternative shortbread crust.

FMM: I did not think the crust was thick enough; there wasn't enough there to make it a bar you could hold. I put them in the frig and will see if they cut and hold together better tomorrow. I found a recipe that used 2 cups in a 9x9 inch pan along with 8 Tbsp. butter. And others poured the condensed milk on the graham cracker layer, maybe to make them stay together better. Commenter: " Here is a quick tip for everyone. , ,we have always put the milk first over the crust then the coconut, pecans and choc chips. Press everything lightly into the milk and bake as directed. They come out much better that way." She doesn't say why they are better, but I did find that the condensed milk became sticky on top once baked and wasn't sure I liked that.

6 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 cup graham cracker crumbs (7 rectangular crackers) - use 2 cups graham crackers? see above
1 cup coconut
1 cup chocolate chips
[1 cup butterscotch chips, or peanut butter chips to make 7 Layer Bars]
1 cup chopped nuts
1 can condensed milk (homemade condensed milk)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a 9 x 9 inch baking pan. [Be sure to brush the butter up the sides of the pan as it was hard to cut away from the edge once baked] Add the graham cracker crumbs and pat down into a layer. Layer the remaining ingredients in the order listed and press down. [be careful not to pour the sweetened condensed cream to the edges - gets stuck to the pan. Just drizzle over top.] Bake 35 minutes [mine were ready in 25 minutes] until just lightly browned. [To cut easily, let sit in refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.]

Alternative shortbread crust:

1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar packed
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of fine sea salt, optional

In a large bowl cream the butter with the brown sugar until smooth with an electric hand mixer. Slowly stir in the flour (and optional sea salt) until combined. Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden brown.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the crust, followed by the pecans, then the coconut. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over everything trying to cover the top as best you can. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown on top.

Variations for Hello Dolly Bars

When it comes to these quick and easy bars, there’s no reason you can’t customize the recipe to suit your tastes:

• Graham crackers are only the beginning. For a chocolate base, use Oreo or chocolate wafer crumbs, or swap with shortbread or Biscoff cookie crumbs for more variety. The Kellogg's 1970 recipe uses corn flakes mixed withsugar and butter.
• Use your favorite chocolate, including white, milk, dark, or any flavored morsels you prefer.
• Switch up the coconut with oats, cranberries or other dried fruits, and the pecans with any type of nuts you prefer. You can also swap the nuts with seeds or pretzels for a nut-free version. A Chocolate-Cherry combination would be good with coconut and nuts.
• Drizzle with melted dark chocolate or sprinkle with flaky sea salt for a final flourish.

Some History & How Magic Cookies Evolved

Recipes for these bars began to pop up in the 1960s, both on the back of the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk, as well as submissions in various publications.

The tale behind the name Hello Dollys is probably the most fun. It's rumored that the recipe became popular when Carol Channing was starring in Broadway's Hello Dolly! musical, according to Southern Living. Thus, the bars were named for the show, though any real tie to the musical is still a mystery.

The name seems to have been attached to a food column by Clementine Paddleford in The Week. On September 19th, 1965, Paddleford featured a recipe that was sent in by 11-year-old Alecia Leigh Couch. Couch claimed to have learned the recipe from her grandmother, and it included the familiar layers of graham cracker crumbs, flaked coconut, chocolate chips, chopped nuts, and condensed milk. Another outlet, the Evening News from Ada, Oklahoma, published a similar recipe for Hello Dolly Cookies earlier that year, on July 22nd, 1965 — but it seems the first iteration of the magic cookie bars might have actually come straight from a can of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk. Kentucky's News Enterprise gave credit to Gail Borden, the owner of the company, for the choice to put the recipe on the back of the product.

Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk Magic Cookie Bars recipe from 1970 (see picture):

An even earlier recipe from an advertisement in a 1940s publication is for Eagle Brand Magic Cookies. These “Five Way Cookies” are made by combining one can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk and 1/2 cup peanut butter, then adding one of the five possible ingredients – two cups raisins, two cups corn flakes, three cups coconut, two cups bran flakes, or on cup nut meats, chopped. These three ingredient cookies were dropped by the spoonful onto a buttered baking sheet and baked for fifteen minutes in a moderate oven (375 degrees). This recipe makes about 30 cookies.