Name: Elizabeth’s Magic Layer Bars
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 275 min
Yield: 24 bars

For the bars

For topping the bars

Elizabeth Poett is passionate about preserving and maintaining her family’s ranch while growing healthy, fresh foods to share with loved ones.


Elizabeth Poett

These bars are simple to make and so scrumptious that they seem to disappear in seconds. The layers of dark chocolate, white chocolate, and butterscotch meld with the coconut, walnuts, and sweetened condensed milk for a rich, buttery caramel flavor. You can switch up the types of chocolate and the nuts to make this with your favorites. These are great for feeding a crowd and are easy to make a day ahead of time. They’re fun to bring to a potluck and they travel well. All in all they’re a decadent dessert that doesn't need to be served on a plate.

Elizabeth’s Magic Layer Bars

Meet The Creator

For breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a quick snack in-between, eggs are a sure way to fuel you any time of day. They can be mainstays of a meal or key ingredients

A Collection of Egg Recipes

“There are some meals you know are special because of the time they require or the long list of ingredients they call for. Other times, I find joy in recipes that can be as creative or straightforward as I want. The base of this recipe offers that flexibility. Flatbread is delicious with a simple, traditional hummus or dip, but I also love piling on veggies from the garden, or as this recipe calls for, a little bit of prosciutto and arugula.” — Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Table, Volume 3

Joanna Gaines' Balsamic-Glazed Prosciutto Flatbread

Balsamic-Glazed Prosciutto Flatbread

Every time I pull a jar of these pickles off the shelf, I am so happy I took the time to make them. They are a wonderful addition to many kinds of sandwiches. I often put them on the table at a barbecue so that people can snack on them and add a little something salty to their plates. This is a fun and simple project to do on your own or with your family.

Dill Pickle Chips

This cake is light and airy and fresh! It’s lemony but not overwhelmingly so. I love buttercream frosting and I love lemon curd, and so I decided to try combining them. The result was a frosting that is a dreamy blend of these two favorites: a fresh lemon flavor and a smooth, buttery frosting all in one. If you don't have time to make the lemon curd, it can be store-bought, but it’s fun to make. If you make it you’ll end up with a little bit of extra curd to enjoy on toast. My dad loves everything lemon so I make this cake for him on his birthday every year.

Elizabeth Poett's Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd Buttercream Frosting

Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd Buttercream Frosting

"An easy way to gather vegetables for this recipe is to keep a baggie in the freezer and whenever you have leftover vegetables you can just toss them in. That way, as soon as you cook a recipe that leaves you with chicken bones, you have what you need to make the stock—you can just put it all in a large pot on the stove and let it simmer. I always try to make as much of this stock as possible so that I can freeze at least half the batch. There is satisfaction in using every last bit of food you can, and knowing that nothing is going to waste." – Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Table, Volume 3

Homemade Chicken Stock

Pasta-like potato gnocchi are easy to make and require only a few ingredients that you likely already have in your kitchen. There is something so comforting about this dish that combines the browned, crispy edges of the gnocchi with roasted butternut squash and a cream sauce. The leeks and tarragon give it a fragrance and flavor reminiscent of early spring.

Elizabeth Poett's Homemade Gnocchi with a Creamy Tarragon and Leek Sauce

Homemade Gnocchi with Creamy Tarragon-Leek Sauce

Here you can read Chip's thoughts from our summer issue of Magnolia Journal on identifying the things in your own life that are worth the

Chip's Column: fear-less

Chicken Marsala is one of my dad’s favorite dishes. I learned to make this recipe by cooking it for him over time. This recipe has a really delicious balance of Marsala, mushrooms, garlic, and lemon. It’s an easy stovetop meal that can be made quickly, but is satisfying and rich in flavor.

Chicken Marsala

This is a simple, nourishing soup that’s full of flavor and easy to make. Blending half of the garbanzos (a.k.a. chickpeas) makes for just the right combination of flavorful broth and satisfying texture — not too thick, not too thin. The tomato makes the soup bright, and the basil adds a summery fragrance and flavor, and you can never have too much Parmesan cheese! If you don’t have time to cook the beans, you can make it with canned beans instead. You can also trade out the garbanzo beans for another type of bean.

Elizabeth Poett's Rustic Garbanzo Bean Soup with Parmesan and Homemade Chili Oil

Rustic Garbanzo Bean Soup with Parmesan and Homemade Chili Oil

Roasted mushrooms are one of my favorite dishes to make when hosting friends for dinner because it's so easy to throw them on a sheet pan and let the oven do the work. You can really build on the richness of the mushrooms by pairing it with a simple vinaigrette. As with the Honey Mustard-Glazed Pork Tenderloin, this was inspired by a dish in The Fresh Honey Cookbook by one of my dear late friends, Laurey Masterton. Laurey was wildly passionate about a lot of things, and one of those was bees and honey. It was an honor to be able to recreate some of Laurey's dishes for a dinner on From the Source, incorporating a few of my own touches along the way.

Katie Button's Roasted Mushrooms with Honey Vinaigrette

Roasted Mushrooms with Honey Vinaigrette

I am always super-excited when fresh cherries show up at the markets! These little stone fruits burst with flavor and are only here for a short time, so I love to enjoy them as much as possible. Scones are an easy, quick way to make something special for breakfast, and I think they are best with fresh fruit in them.

Elizabeth Poett's Cherry-Almond Scones Drizzled with White Chocolate

Cherry-Almond Scones Drizzled with White Chocolate

Living in Texas means there are short windows of truly pleasant weather when you can linger outside and lose all sense of time. I like to seize those moments

Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines: Season 6, Episode 5

We’re answering a few of your frequently asked rug care and troubleshooting questions so you can keep your rug looking beautiful for years to come.

Rug Care + Troubleshooting

With the holidays in full swing, I wanted to share a few of my favorite side dishes that highlight the flavors we all know and love this time of year. For our

Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines: Season 4, Episode 4

You can’t have a great soul food dinner without ending with a crowd-pleasing dessert. So, for our final chapter we are going to make a drop biscuit peach cobbler, and it’s as easy to make as it is delicious. Every recipe I create has one common goal: to help you realize that cooking is easy, it’s fun, and anyone can make great food. I promise you, give it a try, and watch how your family and friends come together and how it turns every meal you make into a special occasion.

Millie Peartree's Drop Biscuit Peach Cobbler

Drop Biscuit Peach Cobbler

This very simple, four-ingredient vanilla ice cream recipe is smooth, creamy, and delicious. It will wow all your guests and goes well with just about everything! It’s easy to prepare the base ahead of time, and then just put it in your churner before serving.

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Whether you have just one small corner of your den to work with, or an entire designated room, you can carve out a home office that’s all your own just about anywhere you can place a desk. This guide walks you through how to create an inspiring home office.

How to Create an Inspiring Home Office Space

You can’t have soul food without sides, so I’m going to show you how to make some crowd-pleasing hush puppies. Hush puppies are slightly sweetened cornmeal dough balls that are deep fried until golden and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. And trust me, make way more than you think, they will go quickly!

Hush Puppies

In our area, there are many walnut groves. The funny thing about walnuts is once I start eating them, I can’t quite stop. I developed this recipe to celebrate the sweet fragrance of fresh walnuts in the form of a light fluffy cake. The browned butter frosting is a frosting that can be put on many different cakes but brings such a rich layer of flavor to the sweet walnut cake.

Elizabeth Poett's Walnut Cake with Browned Buttercream Frosting

Walnut Cake with Browned Buttercream Frosting

Curating art for your home can be a process that’s full of creative freedom and fun. Here, we’re sharing a few things to consider when dressing your home in pieces that spark joy and tell your story.

A landscape painting hangs on a stone wall above a styled wooden cabinet. 