Oatmeal Peanut Butter Bars

This is another part of the fabulous foodie day I had Thursday. I was checking the food blogs, as I do almost daily, when I came across this recipe. I immediately saw that I had all the ingredients and couldn't wait to try it.

I got the recipe from the fabulous Kate's blog:
http://yesiwantcake.com/

Check her out, she is amazing. She also happens to have a baby so cute it should be illegal.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Bars

1/2 c butter or margarine, softened
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c peanut butter
2 T flax + 1/4 c water (this is your flax egg)
1 t vanilla
1 c flour
1/2 c oats
1 t baking soda
1 c chocolate chips

Icing
1/2 c powdered sugar
2 T peanut butter
2 T milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugars, and peanut butter until fluffy
3. Beat in the flax egg and vanilla
4. Combine the oats, flour, and baking soda in a bowl
5. Stir it into the creamed mixture and spread it into a greased 9x13 baking dish
6. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and put it in the preheated oven
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown, cool for 10 minutes
8. Combine the icing ingredients in a plastic bag, squish it up
9. Cut a hole in the corner and squeeze all over the topof the bars
10. Let them cool completely, then cut them and try not to inhale the whole thing

So, let's get started shall we?

Ingredients, all things I already had as I mentioned above.
Creaming the butters and sugars until fluffy and beautiful.

Add the flax egg. Those tiny little seeds are a nutritional powerhouse. They are so incredibly good for you. I love the texture they give to food also.

Add the vanilla.

Comine the dry ingredients,

And dump them in with the creamed mixture.

Mix to blend the ingredients together nicely.

Now spread the mix into a greased 9x13 pan. The layer will be very thin but fear not, it will puff up nicely in the heat of the oven.

Sprinkle on the chocolate chips.

Once that is in the oven mix the topping ingredients together in a plastic bag.

See? All golden, puffy, and warm. Pay no attention to the meyer lemon in the back. That was sliced for something completely unrelated, my vodka and club soda to be exact.

Would you take a look at that.

Drizzle the topping on. Gorgeous my friends, GORGEOUS. Well, not as gorgeous as Kate's baby A but still.

The beautiful thing about the icing is that it doesn't soak into the bars making them soggy, it sets up nicely on top and really adds to the experience.

Here is where I am a little ashamed. This dog, Roxy, I promise you is normally really bright. Too smart for her own good actually. But here she is, thinking that little dishtowel is concealing her, giving her the chance to steal one of these bars.

No such luck girl. These are ALL for the humans in the house.

It is two days later and there are only three pieces left. Yes, you can say we enjoyed these.

It is a beautiful Saturday here. Now I am off to do some more research on where I can find a reasonably priced cage for two guinea pigs. Yes, it seems we will be adopting two guinea pigs from the shelter here in the next few weeks. Never, ever tell a 13 year old you will GLADLY get two guinea pigs after you've had a few glasses of wine. They will remember it later and hold you to it. In reality, I have been wanting to open my home to more rescues anyway so I didn't need that much convincing.