Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Peanut Butter Oatmeal & Walnut Cookie Bar with Maple Syrup





I've been wanting to do a variation of one of Trish's very tempting cookie bars for sometime, but didn't get around to it until now because I had trouble finding very basic ingredients like graham crackers or some other item that was pretty integral to the recipe. Check-out what Trish has done with her Peanutty Oatmeal and Pecan Cookie Bar which was adapted from a recipe from My Baking Addiction.

I really liked Trish's idea of making cookie bars out of this cookie recipe and though her modifications were good just as they were, I made further modifications due to the unavailability of certain ingredients. I used maple syrup instead of molasses and chopped up pieces of dark French chocolate instead of using peanut butter chips. Note that I only used 100g of dark chocolate, whereas the original recipe calls for 1 cup.

I didn't reduce the amount of chocolate because I was trying to be healthy here, but thought that 1 cup was too much - and believe me the bars were sweet enough with only 100g of dark chocolate in it. As for the other ingredient substitutes versus the original recipe, let me say that the cookie bars were most likely enhanced by the use of 100% brown sugar and whole wheat flour. I'm pretty skeptical about brown sugar and whole wheat flour being that much healthier anyway so if I thought AP flour and refined white sugar would have made it taste better - believe me - I would have used the latter.

I 'heart' Trish for her adaptation of this recipe. It was just one of those moments in life where someone had a moment of 'genuis' and managed to make something that was already good even better.


Peanut Butter Oatmeal & Walnut Cookie Bar with Maple Syrup

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Butter (115 g)

1/2 +1/3 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Peanut Butter

1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Tbsp Maple Syrup

1 Egg

1/2 Cup AP Flour

1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1/4 Tsp Sea Salt

1/2 Cup Rolled Oats

100g Chopped French Dark Chocolate*

25 Walnut Halves

Step 1: Preheat oven to 175 C (350F).

Step 2: Cream the butter and brown sugar.

Step 3: Stir in the egg, vanilla extract and maple syrup with a wooden spoon. Add the peanut butter. The batter will be quite firm so a flimsy beater won't really do the job.

Step 4: In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and salt and mix this into the batter.

Step 5: Stir in the oatmeal and pieces of dark chocolate.

Step 6: Line a baking tray (23 cm x 23 cm) with baking paper and pat the dough into the tray so that it's evenly distributed and evenly place 5 x 5 walnuts. Press them in firmly.

Step 7: Bake in the oven for 26 minutes.**


*Any dark chocolate you like will do. I don't like Spanish chocolate at all so I try to buy chocolate that's made in France.

**The baking time may differ depending on your oven. Estimated baking time can range anywhere from 20 - 28 minutes.

13 comments:

Dewi said...

Sounds scrumptious Murasaki. I'll back to check on your photo.
Cheers,
elra

NKP said...

Sounds yummy!

ann low said...

This looks good to come with a cup of good coffee :)

♥peachkins♥ said...

the name of it alone sounds super heavenly. I soo love maple flavored anything!

Anonymous said...

I want a bar too!

Brown sugar is most definitely NOT any healthier than plain old white granulated sugar.

Whole-wheat flour, on the other hand, is DEFINITELY healthier than AP flour. The only problem is, I rarely make a dessert recipe that incorporates it without regretting using AP.

Dorte said...

This sounds and looks so delicious, Murasaki.

Palidor said...

They look great! I like how you used maple syrup.

Trish said...

You my friend, are quite the inventor yourself! I've been too busy to stop by but you are a sweetheart for the kind words. I like what you have done with the recipe. See? This is so cool, across the 'waters' we all have different ingredients and so can make and remake recipes. Imagine our great great great grandparents also adapting recipes as they moved across to different 'lands'. Love what you did...save me a piece!

Anonymous said...

Oh Gosh... looks SOOO GOOOOD...just reading the ingredients made me HAPPY :) !

Lori said...

They sound super yummy. What a treat!

Justin said...

there is no way i wouldn't love these

Karine said...

I would love these bars! Maple syrup adds so much flavors to everything :)

taste traveller said...

Maple Syrup makes everything better! :-)