Apricot Oatmeal Bar Cookies

A juiced-up version of Raisin Oatmeal Cookies.

¾ cup Brown Sugar
2 tablespoons Water
½ stick Butter

The water is to loosen up the brown sugar, which has gone hard and lumpy. I used too much water. Mixing the above together (and breaking the sugar apart) is a slow process, with the (ever present) danger of flipping some glop onto the counter (from pressing down too hard with the spoon).

1 Egg

I mixed it, again. And I am letting it sit on the counter (again), as I'm going to go for a walk. I'm not sure if the sitting on the counter is important or not. But it's what I am going to do.

¾ cup Flour

I mixed it here.

⅛ cup Water

And I mixed it (again) and added more water, because, you know, at this point, the dough has been sitting around for a while.

20 Dried Apricots (quartered)
½ cup Water

These particular Apricots are old and pretty darn hard, so I am going to let them sit in some water, while the dough ripens... not that dough, necessarily, needs to ripen.

Eh, while I'm waiting, I might as well add:

2 teaspoons Cinnamon
½ teaspoons Ginger
¼ teaspoons Nutmeg

I over-spice. Too much spice is never enough. Also, oddly, cinnamon works as an antidote for sugar cravings, so likely (or unlikely) it will make these easier to stop eating, as there will be less of a sugar cascade. Of course, an over-spicy nasty taste would do the same thing. So, you might want to take anything (and everything) I have to say (about pretty much anything and everything) with a grain of salt: an ingredient, which will come soon enough.

8 prunes (cut in sixths)
1 cup Walnuts (lazily chopped)

Mix 'er up!

Or at least, that is what I did.

2 cups Oats (the good kind)

And then, I gave it all one final mix.

Yes. Yes. I said I was going to make cookies (to myself if no one else). But I cannot be bothered with that. So, bar cookies it is.

The glop, dough, or whatever you want to call it is being poured (even as we speak) into a pre-buttered baking dish (which was pre-buttered with loads and loads of butter, like 1½ tablespoons).

And after sprinkling the top (quite liberally with salt), I'm thinking 45 minutes 350° will be about right. But I'll set the timer for 30 minutes, as I don't want them to burn.

Nice and brown, these solidified nicely and are a hearty (very hearty) joy to eat.


March, 2019