This week, in baking. . . part 1

Hello, The Internet!

I said that I'd be posting some more this weekend, and here's one of them. Let's see if I can get all of the posts I wanted up by the end of the weekend - but I'm pretty sure that I'll only get two of the four done by the end of this weekend. I'm working this weekend, and for some reason that takes up a lot of time that I could be spending blogging. Ah well. You'll get them when you get them.

Let's look at the making of. . . Thick, chewy granola bars!! I, of course made a few alterations, as well as two - that's right, two - different flavours. One used dried cherries and blueberries, maple syrup, white chocolate chips, and apple butter. And the other used the same dried fruit, buckwheat honey, hazelnut butter, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

mmmmm apple butter. . .

mmmmmm hazlenut butter. . .

My only excuse is that I had to try apple butter but I wasn't sure it would work out using that instead of a nut butter. The irony being that the apple butter granola bars ended up working out better than the hazelnut butter ones - though that might have been also due to not cooking them quite long enough to set fully (see note below) . . . Live and learn. I'll just have to make several more batches of granola bars to see how different flavours and ingredients work. It's a hard knock life, isn't it?

Now, a string of photos of creating the bars!

gathering ingredients and preparing the tins

mixing dry ingredients

 Just a quick note - I used a bit less than half a cup of dark brown sugar, instead of the 1/2-3/4 of a cup of white sugar. I dislike overly sweet anythings, and dark brown sugar has so much more character than white that I thought I could get away with less than the required amount of sugar. And the bars were still a little bit too sweet. Though, if I made the bars without chocolate, the amount of sweetness probably would have been perfect.

measuring out the tasties

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon?? Hah! That's a
heaping teaspoon for you

mixing the yumbly stuffs together

pouring out some buckwheat honey

action shot! whisking the wet ingredients

adding the hazelnut butter

squooshing it all into the pan

ready to bake (über-blurry. . . wheee)

I tried something arty. Didn't work

Baked!

A second note - notice the closer square is less evenly golden-brown? The tin I used was slightly smaller than the other, and so the squares were a bit thicker than the first batch. My inner-expert-baker was having a nap and this didn't occur to me as an issue until I was starting to cut the squares. . .

listen to the original recipe - use a
serrated, not sharp, knife

They weren't the prettiest bars - I should have waited to cut them until after they were thoroughly cooled. But they were certainly tasty. After giving some to my friend, and some to the boyfriend, we have very little left today, only a few days after they were made.

Yup. Two left. Oh wait, I ate one. . . So just one left now.

And I have lists of ideas for other flavour combinations. I can't wait! Two more baking projects to share with you, Dear Internet, coming up in the near future. I hope you're having a phenomenal weekend!