Peanut butter oatmeal bars, yum!
I enjoy taking baking and fruit to school for my morning and/or afternoon snack. Months ago, I saw a friend eating a granola bar and thought, gee, it would be pretty cool to make my own to bring to school. I've finally found a recipe with ingredients I had on hand, and that I agreed with. (No "quick oats," no margarine, no non-stick sprays, no fake peanut butter.) I realised I don't have honey or icing sugar.
Baking one's own is of course much cheaper than constantly buying Chewy bars that are wrapped in plastic and filled with god-knows-what. One also finds a shorter, healthier list of ingredients.
The recipe is from allrecipes.com, submitted by Kate.
I used:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup Rogers Sugar white sugar
1/2 cup packed Rogers Sugar demerara (brown) sugar
1/3 cup President's Choice Organic crunchy peanut butter
1 egg, free run
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (ok ok, I used 1 tsp by mistake and it's artificial, which is tragic)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup white (all-purpose) flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used 1 cup of milk chocolate chips; my pan is 8 x 8")
1. Cream butter and white sugar and brown sugar. Blend in 1/3 cup peanut butter, egg, vanilla, and baking soda. Add flour and oatmeal. Mix well!
2. Spread in greased 13x9 inch baking pan. [I used butter to grease.] Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with chocolate chips.
3. Return to oven and bake for eight minutes. Spread to smooth out chocolate chips. Cool! Mix icing and spread over bars. Refrigerate to set. Cut and eat.
4. To Make Icing: Mix together 1 cup confectioners' sugar, 1/4 cup peanut butter and 3 1/2 tablespoons milk until it makes a spreadable consistency.
Unfortunately I neglected to remember that things rise in the oven, so when I noticed my batter was going to be "too thin" spread across 2 pans of 5 square inches less than a 13 x 9 pan, I kept it in one 8 x 8. As a result of my idiocy, I had to wait longer, baking it 13 minutes longer than suggested for a total of 33 minutes... give or take. It would have been better at the proper thickness.
Don't put the chocolate chips in too much of a concentration if you can avoid it; it makes it mushy until it has cooled to harden. Also, most of the chocolate chips fall off and make a mess if you don't use icing.
I am an Interactive Designer in Vancouver, BC, and a graduate of the Communication Design program at the Emily Carr Institute. I enjoy tea, chocolate and European desserts. My passions here and elsewhere include the local eating lifestyle, environment and sustainability issues, public transit, health and design. You see? They're all related.
