Monday, March 5, 2012

Week 9 - Cookies - Oatmeal Fudge Cookie Bars


First off, let me say these are delicious. Now that we have that out of the way, I confess that although I love love love making cookies (I go a little nuts around the holidays in particular), I just did not have the brain power or time to handle the whole cookie sheet and batches process, so although perhaps a cop out to do bars, I guarantee you'll see plenty of cookies from me in the future. Also, this sorta serves as a double BC/CC whammy since I used coffee in the fudge port of this creation. 

As many of you know I am working on finishing up my Masters degree and with only two weeks left this quarter it is crunch time. I had (ugh, still have) copious amounts of writing to do and spent most of my weekend hunkered down in my office at work getting homework done. I know this is a food blog, but just to give you a glimpse of my weekend, here is my qualitative theme analysis spread out on three desks.


Now, lets forget about that an get on with this week's challenge details! The nice thing about this recipe is that the oatmeal mixture you make serves as both the crust and the topping! It is a basic oatmeal, brown sugar, flour, melted butter mixture. Pretty straight forward.


I pressed 2/3 of the mixture into a foil lined 13x9 and threw that in the oven for 12 mins or so - till just brown and firm. This picture is a little foggy but shows the baked crust and the leftover mix ready to be used as topping.


After cooling the crust, I put the chocolate chips into a double boiler. I was a little short on the chocolate chips so I improvised and added some butterscotch to the mix.  


Once melted I whisked in two eggs until fully incorporated.
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While the chocolate and butter scotch melted, I threw together a little mix of dry goods including sugar, flour, and instant coffee. This gets added to the chocolate and egg mixture next.


The result is a thick brownie batter-like substance which I then spread over the cooled crust.


Sprinkle the remaining oatmeal mixture on top and pop it in the over!


Here it is fully cooked and cooling.


I cut them into small 2 or 3 bite bars (I learned my lesson with those White Trash Bars back in week 6) and, of course, dug in. They are really tasty and I like the addition of the slight butterscotch taste in the fudgey middle.  Pretty easy and quite good -these are getting added to the repertoire for sure. Now, Andrew and I just have to avoid eating them all before Wednesday - these are intended for a work potluck that day. Probably won't be too hard for Andrew since he's not a huge sweets person, but my will power will be another story. Although, the fact that I'll be at work doing homework till late every night means they have a hope of surviving till the potluck.

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