I recently ate one of Dawn Garcia’s yummy power bars, a healthful cookie packed full of nutrient-dense superfoods. You can eat these cookies with a guilt-free conscious, knowing you are providing your body with true nourishment. One of the reasons I like this recipe is because there is only one bowl to wash.
Power Bars
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 tbsp heavy cream or half and half
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup almond meal/flour
½ cup oat flour
1 cup unbleached white flour or whole wheat flour
2 cups whole oats quick or regular
1 cup dried cranberries
½ cup almonds, sliced or chopped
½ cup shredded coconut
1 cup white chocolate chips
Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the egg, cream and vanilla, mix well then add the salt, baking soda, almond meal and flours. Add the oats, cranberries, almonds, coconut and chocolate chips. Pat into a lined 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 375⁰ for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Let cool and then cut. You can substitute any kind of dried fruit or a different kind of chocolate chip.
If you don’t have oat flour (and you probably don’t) you can make it yourself by grinding up oats in your blender or food processor. The same goes for the almond meal; just add almonds and pulverize into a fine powder.
I read awhile back about “piloncillo”, an unrefined cane sugar commonly used in Mexican and Latin American cuisines. After looking around for a while, I finally found some piloncillo in the Mexican food section at Grocery Outlet in Madras. This isn’t granulated sugar as we know it because it comes in a hard cone that fits in the palm of your hand.
Apparently cooks are supposed to grate it; I found that to be quite tedious so I shaved the cone with my chef’s knife. I was surprised to find that the sugar had a complex flavor with hints of caramel, browned butter and molasses. This sugar seemed more like candy than just a plain staple ingredient and I had to resist the temptation to gobble it up while whacking away at it with my knife.
The shaved cone yielded about a cup and that was all the sugar I used (I don’t like things too sweet and the lovely flavor of the sugar still shown through). I didn’t add any dried fruit or chocolate chips and they were still quite delicious. Too delicious, in fact. The whole batch was gone in less than a day and the dog liked them too! Thank you,
Dawn, for sharing your awesome recipe with us.
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