I feel like some kind of evil genius! Well, not ‘genius’, but an evil tinkerer for sure.
Lloyd’s never been a breakfast person, but he started eating breakfast last year, which makes me happy. It’s a pretty healthy one – an apple, a string cheese stick, and a breakfast bar. The breakfast bar actually came into the picture late in the game. I had bought a million-sized box of them from Sam’s and he left them untouched in the basement for months, then tried one and liked it. So for the beginning of this school year he polished them off one by one, then ran out. The problem is that they were Quaker Breakfast Bars, and Quaker no longer makes them. (I’ve checked everywhere – even the internets.)
I bought some failed replacements that looked chock-full of whole-grain goodness but were actually more like Fig Newtons, and he hated them. (We’re keeping them on hand for survival rations should the swine flu take over Seward.)
Determined to arm myself with the proper buying knowledge, I asked, “What did you like about the Quaker bars?”
Lloyd: “They were full of oaty goodness – like a Quaker had made them.”
Me: “Couldn’t I just make you oatmeal cookies?”
He didn’t answer. I’m sure his silence was because he was so full of joy and anticipation over having my delicious cookies for breakfast he was rendered speechless. I’ve taken things a step further.
Breakfast. Bars.
So, I mixed up a half-batch of cookies, chilled the dough, and made a cranberry-apple filling. I started to pat the dough out in little circles but instantly realized that I was wasting time.
I am not patting out dozens of cookies to put jam in them. Rolling it out between sheets of parchment paper worked much better.
Here’s where I felt most geniusy. – Flip!
Viola’!
Flip! Viola’! Thank you, paper.
Now, I should mention that I foolishly thought it would stay in this perfect breakfast-bar-form while baking. What am I, an idiot? I started writing this post while it was baking, and when it was time to take it out of the oven (about 14-15 minutes later at 350 – Gah!!! That is not attractive! It spread like …. something that spreads!! (In a panic I got out the rest of the dough and frantically thought how I could get it to firm up. “More flour and oatmeal!” I wound up dumping a fair amount of cornmeal onto the dough because it’s in an oatmeal-shaped box. There will be no second batch of bars.)
Oh, well. I cut it into wrong-oriented bars with a pizza cutter, let it cool, and made Lloyd eat one of each. He pronounced the raspberry side ‘a bit too sweet’, the texture ‘just right’, and the apple-cranberry side ‘very good’.
…. maybe he’ll like corn flavor?