Monday, March 11, 2013

Granola Bars again... and other food related mumbo jumbo

I have been really convicted lately to put good food into the bodies of my growing children and my aging husband (ha ha) and me too.  I have read labels.  Do you even know what you are eating? Well if the first 5 ingredients of a product I cannot read, pronounce, or be given as a word in a spelling bee that I would spell correctly I don't buy it.  Read your yogurt for example.  Yeah.  Not cool.

So of course, I am on a mission to recreate a granola bar that is both super yummy AND not too crunchy.  There's nothing worse than using your back teeth to both bite and chew a granola bar.  Kinda defeats the purpose.  So the first thing I tried (last night) was to NOT toast the oatmeal that goes into the bar.  I used steel cut oats, as always. NOT instant.  Instant oatmeal is not as good for you.  In the scope of things, probably better for you than a toaster strudel.  So that's something.

So two problems I faced with not toasting the oatmeal: 1. the bars were softer but didn't stick together.  2.  The bottoms were gooey.  I only baked the bars for the recipe standard 20 minutes, but I think it needed possible 30.  I read another recipe that has the baking temp lower and longer.  It also uses less wet ingredients- 6 tbsp butter and 1/2 cup honey.  But not by much..in comparison to my recipe that uses 2 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp molasses, 2 tbsp butter, and 2 tbsp oil and 4 tbsp apple juice. 12 tbsp in mine = 3/4 cup vs 10 tbsp in the other recipe.

I will keep working on it.


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