Sunday, September 21, 2008

Oatmeal Coconut bars with Raisins

This is a nice and easy recipe to make. I picked it up from somewhere online and tinkered around with it. I have added ground flaxseeds to give it some Omega 3, but will not include that in the recipe. Zach loves this for breakfast and they are pretty healthful. I had some raspberries from a recent trip to the u pick so after I cooked the bars for 10 minutes I opened the oven and just stuck some raspberries in the top. That's totally optional for you though.

If you like, you can substitute margarine or Smart Balance or something instead of butter if you like. I've been trying to reduce hydrogenated oils, therefore I used butter.

Salt is optional, I left it out.

You cook this in a 13x9 inch pan, however the first time I made it, the pan was so big, that the bars came out very thin. So you can either double the recipe, or use an 8x8 inch pan to make them nice and thick.

Oatmeal Coconut Bars with Raisins

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
3/4 c applesauce or apple butter
2 egg whites
2 tbsp skim milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 1.5c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
2 cups rolled oats uncooked
1 cup shredded coconut (If you don't want this, just add one more cup of oats instead)
1 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat together sugars and butter until blended. Add applesauce(or butter), egg whites, milk and vanilla; beat well.
3. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; mix well. Add into wet ingredients.
4. Stir in oats, coconut and raisins; mix well (Optional - add 2 tsp ground flax seeds)
5. Spread dough in greased 8x8 pan for thick bars, or 13x9 pan for thin bars (or doubled recipe)
6. Bake for 35-35 minutes or until light golden brown. (3o mins has worked for me.)
7. Cool before cutting.

1 comment:

Renata said...

Mmm, that looks really good. I just bought coconut, but I don't have the applesauce :-( Please tell me how much ground flaxseed you put in. I like to add that to my stuff too.