French Frdays with Dorie

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

Apparently January is not going to be my favorite month for recipes. Last week our recipe was Mrs. Vogel’s Scherben, I skipped this because it was described as tasting like the fried dough from county fairs. The repulsive, so must be avoided, funnel cake. I also did not want to deal with a large quantity of grease.


In lieu of the Scherben I elected to make a recipe from the past - Dorrie's marshmallows. I have made marshmallows a couple of times in the past so I thought I knew what to expect. But, I was disappointed, these marshmallows were not nearly as fluffy as the ones I made previously. To go with them, I made some of Ina Garten's hot chocolate. Turns out once I put the marshmallows into the hot chocolate, I couldn't stomach the sweetness!


I made the cappucino flavored marshmallow - this was my first attempt at a flavored marshmallow. They are a nice color and they have a nice background flavor. However, I was not impressed with the yield, with their strange ability to absorb the dusting sugar and generally with their overall taste. I'll stick to my other recipes and give this one a miss.

Then this week - Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars - oatmeal cookies (not my fav), in bar form (not my fav) and my containing peanuts (not my fav in fact they are my least favorite nut for cooking). Before even beginning my expectations were very low.


I found the cookie base to be a poor carrier of flavor. I did not get the sensation of rich buttery oatmeal cookies - it just seemed to lack cohesion. I liked the hint of cinnamon but that was all. The chocolate layer was okay - it reminded me of today's Chunky candy bar - I prefer the original with the Brazil nuts. So, I did not care much for it. Once the individual sections were combined into one cookie, I hoped the sum of the parts would be larger than the individual components. For me, this did not happen.


I cut the bars into fairly small servings, but my bars were quite tall so even a small cookie was a lot of cookie to eat.


I did find their construction to be surprisingly easy considering all of the elements involved. I will be looking elsewhere to satisfy any oatmeal cookie cravings that I develop. Lilian at Confectiona's Realm selected and posted this recipe. Visit the other TWD blogs to see how our other bakers fared with this recipe and buy the book, if you want to own all of these recipes for yourself.

And next week's recipe is called Cocoa-Nana Bread - now you know that thing is going to have at least one stinking banana in it! Bleech! I can't wait for February's recipes - I know I'll like them better!

2 comments:

Flourchild said...

Sorry you have not been enjoying the recipes lately. Your bars look good even if you didn't like them.

TeaLady said...

Sorry these weren't your thing. I liked them but didn't love them. Lots of chocolate in Feb.