Tuesday, January 19, 2010

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost Candy-Bars


Another Tuesdays with Dorie and I'm just glad I was able to participate. This week's recipe is for Chocolate Oatmeal Almost Candy-Bars, as chosen by Lillian at Confectionia's Realm.

A bar cookie such as these would normally be right up my alley, but lately I'm just not that into really, really 'heavy' cookie type desserts like this one - perhaps because baby is making me feel plenty heavy all on her own. Since ultimately the recipe didn't really reduce all that well (no half-size cans of sweetened condensed milk around here that I could find - if they even exist) that I decided to forget about trying to reduce the size of the batch and just make the whole kit and kaboodle instead. Which made a lot of cookies.

I decided that, since we are now in the home stretch with this pregnancy (six weeks to go and looking good!) that I would just cut the bars and freeze the bulk of them for times in the near future when I need a little snack. While I haven't tried one straight from the freezer yet, they remind me of a similar cookie that a friend of mind makes that is delicious frozen, so why not. Otherwise, I'll just let them thaw a bit - maybe I'll even just end up taking a box of these with me to the hospital to share with the nurses and staff and visitors or something - I'm sure they would be appreciated there.

The only change I ended up making to the recipe was to just leave out the raisins in the chocolate layer, which worked just fine. I'm just learning to try to like raisins in the first place, but I still just can't seem to get behind the chocolate/raisin combo. Maybe someday!

Be sure to check out how the rest of the TWD Bakers faired this week - it seemed like there were a lot of substitution ideas bouncing around during the P&Q so there should be some interesting variations out there.

31 comments:

  1. These look very tempting. I like the extra thick layer of chocolate!

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  2. these look so yummy- six weeks left for me, too, so i'm feeling that heaviness too, girl!

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  3. These were SO good! Yours look yummy!

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  4. I left out the raisins too.

    How did you get the base so thin? Mine was really thick.

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  5. Spectacular and if you have any you can't get rid of, Matt would be happy to take them off your hands! Continuing best wishes for the baby and all of you.

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  6. Great idea to freeze them for later! They look great. I hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well.

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  7. Glad you liked them, I thought they were ok. Glad to hear your are doing well!!

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  8. yours look great! i'm with chocoaltechic...how did you get your base so thin? it seems you have a greater ratio of chocolate filling to dough...which looks awesome!

    glad you are doing well! good luck!

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  9. mmm these look great! i also had some trouble halving the condensed milk (i had to end up putting the whole can in a measuring cup and pouring half of it into the chocolate) but i think that was the hardest part of these bars.

    sending best wishes for the bun in the oven ;)

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  10. Oh yours look absolutely delicious! I added coconut to mine. DELICIOUS! I couldn't do raisins either. Just didn't seem right.

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  11. Aww, I love the chocolate-raisin combo, but then again I am a self-proclaimed omnivore. They do look fab! (Reminds me of revel bars)

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  12. Yours look great--very squidgy and fudgy. I made half a batch and now have leftover condensed milk in my fridge, which I keep stirring into my coffee.

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  13. these look so yummy! I don t think smaller cans of milk exist. I usually put leftover milk in the fridge for later use

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  14. Your bars look great! So smart to tuck them away in the freezer!
    I made half a batch but with pecans and caramel! Ahhh. Good stuff.
    Six weeks to go and fingers crossed for ya!

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  15. Okay, I'll remember than baking them just a little les, makes them look even more decaent!
    Thanks for the ooey, chewey, gooey tip! LOL

    Nicely done!

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  16. Yours look perfect! I made them with raisins, but I have always liked raisins with or without chocolate. :)

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  17. That's definitely a bar cookie I could love! But I would definitely leave the raisins in. I'm a big Raisinet fan! I'm so glad the pregnancy is going well! See you soon!

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  18. I froze a bunch of ours, too. This is the kind of thing that would be good to just have one once in a while. Not a while pan full.
    Good luck on the pregnancy! I love it when the end is in sight!

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  19. You are going to be so happy some day in the future when you remember that these cookies are stashed away in the freezer. One of the other TWDers did comment that these are great frozen. They look so good!

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  20. I have a bunch going into the freezer as well. We really like these!

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  21. You didn't miss anything by leaving out the raisins. Yours look delicious! Hang in there and take it easy!

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  22. Those look so ooey-gooey and delicious. They will pack a nice energy punch for after the baby comes, definitely. I actually did halve my recipe and used the rest of the condensed milk to make dulce de leche...which I forgot about and burned.

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  23. Hme stretch indeed! Good, luck, Holly! And those bars look phenomenal! Great, great photos!

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  24. these were really good. I only made 1/2 cause I knew where most of them would end up. But they were tooooo sweet for me.

    Yours look just right.

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  25. These do look delicious :) Anything with chocolate and I'm in. I like your strategy of putting some in the freezer. I've been doing that a lot lately, and now I have quite a nice little container in there with a whole variety of treats. Cuz a girl can never have too many treats to choose from.

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  26. Great looking bars. I loved them too and thought they were much better then candy bars!!

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  27. 6 weeks to go, whooo! Good luck in the home stretch...kick back and have another bar while you wait. :)

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  28. Yeah -- the raisins were a no-go for me too. But I can't think of anything better to take to the hospital -- or anywhere else! -- with you than these cookies. Thanks for baking with me this week!

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  29. Yes, I think you'll get great care if you take these with you to the hospital! Putting them in the freezer for future snacking is a smart plan. 6 weeks...woo hoo!

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  30. Oh my, oh my!
    Your blog is delightful.
    Everything looks so yummy!
    Thanks for sharing. :)

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