No-bake chocolate oat bars

I don’t know if it shows from reading this blog, but a lot of things I make involve  ’bars’, chocolate and/or oats.

The reason for this is the friendly pony’s need for sustenance at work, in the form of something sweet, easy to eat, and that won’t get destroyed by being carried around in a bag all day.

These bars are absolutely perfect for that, as in addition to having everything mentioned above, they are also unbelievably simple to make!

Essentially, they are flapjacks that don’t need baking, with a nutty chocolate mixture spread on top – laden with calories, just what the greedy friendly pony likes.

No bake chocolate oat bars (adapted from Gingerbread Bagels):

• 1/2 cup packed muscovado sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 75g dark chocolate
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1/3 cup Nutella

Line an 8×8″ square tin with baking paper, no need to grease. Heat the butter and sugar together over a low heat until the butter has melted. Stir in the oats and cook for a further 4-5 minutes. Spread the mixture into the tin and flatten down with a wooden spoon or bottom of a measuring cup.

Break up the chocolate and place in a bowl with the peanut butter and Nutella (the original recipe uses just peanut butter, but I didn’t have enough which is why I went for half and half – peanut butter on it’s own or Nutella on it’s own would both work fine!) Microwave in 15 second bursts, stirring in between, until the chocolate has just melted – be careful not to let it burn! Pour onto the oaty base, then chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours before slicing into bars.

Caramel crumble bars

Continuing with the recent crumb/crumble theme, I introduce these caramel crumble bars. Essentially millionaires shortbread, but with a crumble topping rather than chocolate.

I found the recipe on Baked Perfection, and pretty much kept it the same apart from adding a drizzle of dark chocolate on top. I should have just stuck with the original, as the chocolate didn’t really stick to the crumb topping and fell off quite easily…

I won’t bother re-typing the original as it’s perfectly well explained here, but I would definitely recommend trying it as they were pretty tasty!

Peanut butter chocolate chip crumble oat bars

‘Peanut butter chocolate chip crumble oat bars’ is a bit of a mouthful to say, and these bars were definitely a bit of a mouthful to eat.

I made this as an alternative to the friendly pony’s usual flapjacks as a high calorie, sugar rush, energy boost.

The base is a cross between flapjack and shortbread, with a layer of fudgy peanut butter on top and finished with a chocolate chip crumble.

They are super rich, and you need a really sweet tooth to eat a whole one, but the pony loved them, and I enjoyed the odd nibble here and there. They’re a bit more time consuming and need more ingredients than flapjacks (not to mention the sky high calorie count) so I’m not sure I’ll make them that regularly, but they definitely make an awesome occasional treat.

Peanut butter chocolate chip crumble oat bars (adapted from 1001 cupcakes, cookies and other tempting treats):

• 225g butter
• 350g plain flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 350g light brown sugar
• 175g oats
• 70g chopped peanuts
• 1 egg
• 200g milk chocolate chunks
• 100g dark chocolate chunks
• 400g tin condensed milk
• 70g crunchy peanut butter

Rub together the flour, baking powder and butter with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs, then mix in the sugar, peanuts and oats. Transfer a quarter of the mix into a separate bowl, add in the chocolate chunks and set aside. Add the beaten egg to the remaining 3/4 of the mix then press into a 12×8″ tin. Bake at 180 for 15 minutes.

While the base is baking, mix together the condensed milk and peanut butter. When the base comes out the oven, spread the peanut butter mix over the top, then sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture on top. Return to the oven for another 20 minutes, the leave to cool before cutting into bars. This made 10 friendly pony sized bars, but would make 20 very reasonable sized squares easily.

Lemon Bars

Lemon bars have been on my to-bake list for a while now, and what better occasion to make them for than a sunny (ha!) summer barbecue.

I had quite a few recipes bookmarked, but went for this one as they’re described as ‘perfect’…

As you can see from the pictures, these turned out nothing like the originals, in looks at least.

I cooked the shortbread for a lot longer as it wasn’t browning, and I couldn’t really work out if the filling was cooked or not, which I think led to it boiling a bit around the edges, and looking a bit messy.

Taste wise though, these were amazing – if you’re the kind of person who can happily eat lemon curd straight from the jar, then these are for you.

Tangy lemon, sweet sugar, and a bit of crunch to hold it all together – not perfect but pretty damn tasty!

Lemon bars (recipe courtesy of Baking Bites):

Crust:

• 1 and a half cups plain flour
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• zest of 3 lemons
• 1/2 cup butter

Blend all the ingredients together in a food processor until it comes together as breadcrumbs. Press down into 9×9″ foil lined baking tin (I find using the bottom of a measuring cup works well for this). Bake at 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes until golden.

Filling:

• 4 eggs
• 1 and a third cups caster sugar
• juice of 6 lemons

Whisk all the ingredients together, then pour onto the base as soon as it comes out of the oven. Put back in the oven and bake for a until set. The original recipe states 20 minutes, but I probably left it for closer to 30. Having never made lemon bars before I still don’t really know what’s correct! Dust liberally with icing sugar before serving.

Chocolate caramel shortbread

This week the friendly pony decided to take a break from dinosaur flapjacks (usually at least one is consumed per day) and tasked me to make something else.

I decided to make something I don’t particularly like, so I wouldn’t be so tempted to steal some for myself. As much as I would love to be able to eat baked goods all the time, it really wouldn’t be good for my waistline!

I decided on chocolate caramel shortbread, because caramel is a bit too sickly for me, but perfect for the pony’s sweet tooth.

I had a few problems making this, firstly that it called for a 9×9″ tray, which I don’t have. I improvised by creating a foil barrier in a rectangle tray, which actually surprised me and worked!

The shortbread itself is absolute simplicity to make so no problems there, but when it came to the caramel I came a bit unstuck.

I very gently heated all the ingredients with no problem, but the recipe then said to bring it to the boil, which immediately caused it to burn on the bottom of the saucepan, no matter how furiously I stirred. I took it off the heat, passed it through a sieve to get rid of the brown bits, then started again in a different saucepan on a lower heat. Frustratingly the same thing happened again and I have absolutely no idea why, so i repeated the sieve procedure, then heated for a THIRD time until it was finally thick enough.

It didn’t quite reach the golden brown colour I was hoping for, and did have a few brown specks in if you look closely, but it was good enough.

Patience is definitely not one of my virtues, so I put the tray in the freezer to firm up so I could get the chocolate on as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this meant that the chocolate set super quick so I couldn’t spread it as neatly as I would of liked, and it had a slightly matt finish instead of being glossy.

Nonetheless, I think these bars turned out ok – the pony declared them ‘NICE!’ and certainly hasn’t had a problem getting through them…

Chocolate caramel shortbread (from 1001 cupcakes, cookies and other tempting treats):

• 115g butter
• 115g plain flour
• 55g caster sugar

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it goes past the breadcrumbs stage and starts to come together. Flatten down into a greased and lined 9×9″ tin and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, until just golden.

• 175g butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 3tbsp golden syrup
• 400ml tin condensed milk
• 200g dark chocolate

Place all the ingredients apart from the chocolate in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then simmer until thick and golden (in an ideal world!) stiring constantly. Pour on top of the shortbread base, and leave in the fridge to set.

Melt the chocolate over simmering water then spread over the caramel. Cut into squares before putting back in the fridge, as the chocolate will be easier to cut and won’t crack.

Dinosaur Flapjacks

This week, the friendly pony (who you will notice appears a lot in my baking stories) took to the kitchen. He wanted to create something sweet and delicious that would give him an energy boost before cycling home from work and could also be frozen.

He decided on flapjacks, decided the key ingredients would be oats, peanuts and chocolates, and asked me to work out the rest.

I adapted a recipe for chocolate hazelnut flapjacks from 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies and Other Tempting Treats (a Christmas present from the pony himself).

We basically double the base amounts of oats, butter, syrup and flour, and threw in extra nuts and chocolate – because they’re the tastiest bit.

This recipe made 12 fairly large flapjacks in an oven roasting tin, so I reckon half the amount would fill a 10×10″ square and maybe make 9.

(PS, the name ‘dinosaur flapjacks’ doesn’t really have much to do with the finished bars, but it’s what the pony wanted to call them.)

Ingredients:

• 400g oats
• 200g peanuts
• 200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 100g plain flour
• 250g butter
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 180g light brown muscovado sugar

Method:

• Heat the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool for a bit then mix in all of the dry ingredients
• Spread the mixture evenly into a greased and lined tin, then bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until it feels firm to the touch.
• Leave to cool a little before cutting into squares, then chill in the fridge until set.