TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe is Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars. And they don’t just have oatmeal and chocolate: they also have peanuts and raisins, giving them extra candy bar gooeyness. For some reason I had it in my mind they contained coconut, which would have been a delicious addition, but Josh doesn’t like it and I was counting on him to consume the lion’s share of these bars (I could tell from the name and number of ingredients they were more his type of snack than mine).



On the Problems & Questions section of the TWD site, people seemed divided about liking raisins in these bars. Since I’m incredibly indecisive (and don’t always like raisins), I used half raisins and half dried sour cherries. I don’t think the type of dried fruit was as important as the bit of contrast and chewiness they lent to the middle chocolate layer, which was also supposed to have peanuts. I chopped up peanuts and then forgot to add them into the chocolate/fruit mixture, so mine were sprinkled on top. I made a half batch, which mostly fit in a 10x7 baking dish, plus one little ramekin. Dorie recommends testing the bars to see if you like them warm, so the ramekin was perfect for that. They’re good both ways! Oh, I thought the bars were a bit difficult to coax out of the pan, so next time I would make a parchment sling for easy lifting – they’re sturdy, so I’m sure it would work well.



I preferred the oatmeal layers and must admit to eating around the chocolate. Josh told me he’d eaten one like that today, too. We thought these treats deserved an 8 for Deliciousness and I gave them a 3 for Effort, for an EDR of 2.66 . Many thanks to Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm for a yummy selection; Lillian’s husband and sons are great food critics and it’s fun to read their reactions to the TWD treats. You can find the recipe here and visit the TWD blogroll to see what the other bakers thought of the bars.