Recipe #11: Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies

I have taken a bit of a break from making brownies, but not a break from baking.  I am excited because our church has started to have a fellowship time between services; I now have a place to take my baked goods so we do not eat them all here at home.

Last week I decided to make Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies.  I was still on an oatmeal baking kick, so I decided to give these cookies a try.

The only change I made to the recipe was to not add raisins and to add chocolate chips instead.  The resulting cookie reminded me of the no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies, but a little less grainy. 

The cookies were apparently a hit because my container was empty when I went to pick it up.

As I have started on this baking quest, I have done some research on how best to add different ingredients like whole wheat flour to recipes.  In doing this research, I have learned some basic information about baking.

One detail I learned that was helpful in making these cookies is that if you want your cookies to come out soft and chewy, you need to keep the fats in the cookie as cold as possible.  In order to do this, I refrigerated the dough before I started baking the cookies and I put the dough back into the fridge while the other dough baked.

Someday, I would really like to take a class on the basics of baking.

Recipe #10: Chocolate Banana Bread

With a toddler and 6-month-old in the house plus the current great price on bananas, there is no shortage of this versatile fruit in our house.  I often try to buy extra bananas so I will have some nicely ripened ones for baking, but we tend to eat through them all rather quickly.

This last week I finally had some well-ripened bananas that were just waiting to be baked, so I decided to try this Chocolate Banana Bread recipe I found on the Money Saving Mom website.

Typically, I do not have much luck with banana bread, but this recipe came out perfect on the first try.  It even came cleanly out of the bread pan!

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 5
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• Mix together the dry ingredients; mix together the wet ingredients; mix the two together--it does not get much easier than that.

• Taste
• Rating: 5 (great)
• I don't recall having ever mixed chocolate and bananas before, but I found the flavors combine together well.
• The chocolate does not overpower the banana; instead they complement one another and both flavors come through.

• Texture
• Rating: 5 (great)
• The bread came out with the perfect quick bread texture.  The bread is moist from the bananas, but not mushy.

• Hints and tips
• I am a Pampered Chef fan and I love using their stoneware.  I found that I had to add about 5 minutes to the cook time to get it completely cooked.
• Instead of mashing the bananas, I cut them up and added them to the wet ingredients.  I then mashed them as I stirred the ingredients, but I left some little chunks.
• If you happen to be using the Weight Watchers point system, one twelfth of the bread equals 5 points.

• Would I make this bread again?
• Definitely.  I look forward to playing with the recipe by using whole wheat flour and either applesauce or Greek yogurt in place of some of the butter to see if I can make it healthier.

Recipe #9: Peanut Butter Bars

Last week I had it in my head that I really wanted to make something with peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate.  While I did not find an official brownie recipe with these three ingredients, I did find this recipe for Peanut Butter Bars that was a suitable substitute. 

I mostly followed the recipe except that I increased the amount of oats to 1 cup as recommended by one of the reviewers of the recipe.  They were a little drier than I hoped that they would be, but otherwise the bars had a good peanut butter and oats taste.  Next time I think that I will experiment a little with the wet ingredients to see if I can make it more moist.

I also baked them in a 9x9 pan instead of a 9x13.  I was afraid they would be a little too thin in the 9x13.  I had to increase the baking time about 15 minutes to make sure they baked through.

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 3
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• Another basic recipe where you throw the ingredients together without any unusual or extra steps. 

• Taste
• Rating: 4 (pretty good)
• The flavors balanced each other out well.  It had a good, but not overpowering, peanut butter taste.
• I am glad I doubled the amount of oatmeal in the recipe.  The taste of the oatmeal was present but again was not overpowering.
• I used milk chocolate chocolate chips because that is all I had in the house.  They tasted good on the top of the bars, but I would like to try it with semi-sweet or dark chocolate to get a stronger chocolate flavor without all the extra sweetness.

• Texture
• Rating: 3 (not terrible, but could be better)
• As with most peanut butter recipes, I felt that these bars were a little too dry.  I would like to make them more moist and chewy.

• Hints and tips
• If you want to taste more of a oatmeal, double the amount called for in the recipe.
• If you bake it in a 9x9 pan, increase the cook time to 40-45 minutes.

• Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
• Yes, but as I stated earlier, I plan to make changes to see if I can improve on the texture.

Recipe #8: Blonde Brownies I

For a Memorial Day get together, I decided to make a batch of brownies.  I was in the mood for chocolate, but not too much chocolate, so I decide to try Blonde Brownies I.

I doubled the recipe because I had the feeling a 9x9 pan of brownies would not be enough, and boy was I correct.  We did not bring any brownies home and my husband almost missed out on having one at the party. 

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 4
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• If you can make chocolate chip cookies from scratch, you can easily handle this recipe

• Taste
• Rating: 5 (good)
• With all the butter in this recipe, it is difficult for it to be anything but tasty
• The use of brown sugar instead of white also gives the brownie a richer taste
• The chocolate chips blended well with the brownie batter

• Texture
• Rating: 4 (good)
• The overall texture is very similar to chocolate chip bar cookies
• The brownies were a little tough, but I think it is because I overcooked them just a bit (I cut off the edges because I considered them to be too tough to take to the party)

• Husband's Opinion
• The husband liked the brownies (even the edges).  He was quite nervous that he almost missed out on having one at the party.

• Hints and tips
• If you make a double batch, you will need to cook the brownies for longer than 25 minutes.  I baked my for close to 50 minutes, but I think next time I will try 40 first.

• Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
• Yes.  These are a nice change from an all chocolate brownie while still having some chocolate taste.