Last Minute Goodies
I must confess, March sure did sneak up on me. One minute it was wet and rainy February, then suddenly it’s March, with daffodils blooming and the sun shining – finally.
With the first week of March comes my birthday, which also sneaks up on me faster each year. We are a little stir-crazy in our house, as we are still doing school virtually and my husband has permanently moved his office into the house. So, we are getting away for my birthday and I am very much looking forward to it. So much so, I almost forgot to cook something for the blog this week. Oops.
I thought I would attempt a sweet treat I have had stored in my saved Facebook files that comes from www.yourhomebasedmom.com. She is far more successful at the Facebook game than I am, and she is fairly prolific. I have many of her recipes saved to try.
The recipe I tried this week was for Chocolate Oatmeal Bars. Every single ingredient is always readily at hand in my pantry, so I though these might become a fast dessert for surprise company, assuming we ever return to that kind of life.
You need quick oats, flour, butter, eggs, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and a bit of baking soda, baking powder and salt. Her recipe is made in a 9×9 pan, which I do not possess, so I made mine in an 8×8. It’s only an inch off in both directions, not a game-changer.
You can either line your pan with parchment paper, or spray it with cooking spray. I used parchment paper which allows you to pop the whole thing out of the pan very easily when it is ready.
I have to admit, while baking these bars, I had a few other things going on, in preparation for our getaway, and just generally running a home. So when I read through the instructions, I thought I was just having a premature senior moment – after all, I am almost 1 year older. I read the first step to combine the ingredients for the crust. She says to combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl, reserving 1 1/4 cup of the mix for later, and pressing the remaining mix evenly into the pan.
Wait a minute. The list of ingredients for the crust also includes 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled. Hmm. I read and reread the first step and the next few and no where is this melted butter mentioned. This can happen – I have done it myself. You get excited sharing a recipe and forget something in the telling.
If you have baked layer bars before, you know that butter is what helps hold the bottom crust together, so I went with my gut and poured in the butter with all the other crust ingredients. This makes it much easier to form a delicious buttery bottom for your bars.
Pop the pan in the oven and bake at 350ºF for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly browned. Remove the pan and allow the crust to cool completely.
While your crust is cooling, prepare the fudgy chocolate filling. In a bowl, combine 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar and 1/2 tsp of salt. Set that aside for a moment while you melt your chocolate chips.
The recipe says to melt the chocolate chips and 4 tbsp butter in a bowl, which would mean you are heating them in the microwave. For some reason, I chose to go old school, and melted my chocolate chips and butter in a pan on the stove. Either way is perfectly fine.
Once the chocolate is nicely melted, add the eggs and then the dry ingredients. Mix well and pour on top of the crust, smoothing evenly across the whole pan.
Finally, take your reserved crust mix and crumble that evenly across the chocolate layer. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the bars to come to room temperature, at least 1 hour. Admittedly, it is very hard to wait for them to cool, so I distracted myself with packing for my weekend trip.
A note on this waiting period – after about 45 minutes, I pulled my bars out of the pan and set them on a cutting board to cool. I thought, surely they are done enough to test. Nope. I cut one corner and the rest threatened to crumble, so RESIST.
By doing this, I did determine that perhaps my center really wasn’t cooked quite enough either. It is supposed to be fudgy, but mine was just plain underdone. Thank goodness for that parchment paper. I simply placed the whole thing back in the pan and popped it back in the oven for another few minutes. Then I had to wait – again.
After the wait, you can use your parchment paper to pull it out of the pan and cut into bars or cut them in the pan. Serve with a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of milk. These bars are rich and delicious.
Now that I have made these yummy bars once, I know I need to modify the cooking time a little in my own oven. Other than that, they really are a fairly easy dessert to make. The hardest part is the wait. Give them a try and see what you think.
You can find the recipe here: https://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/chocolate-oatmeal-bars/
