Friday 27 April 2012

Carrot and Oat bar - baking fail

(Goblin is 30 months)
Last week I spotted Growing Together's 'Carrot Cake bars' post at Happy Whimsical Hearts baking link up (see button below). I decided I had to try them with Goblin. The recipe comes from The Little Things  and there is a Christmas bar variation too.
Normally I would offer the UK measurements but Hublet has bought us an actual 'cup' measurer so I just used that (Sorry). So you need

1 cup of oats 
1/2 cup of grated carrot (which equates to two medium carrots)
2 tablespoons of raisins 
2 table spoons of grated coconut
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
a pinch of salt
honey (TLT say to taste but we ended up using about 4 tablespoons)
water - we used about 1 cup
I always try and enable Goblin to participate as much as possible in any cooking we do. So I decided to try and make the carrots safe for Goblin to grate. And once I'd stopped sniggering and dragged my mind out of the gutter I gave Goblin his carrot with cardboard knuckle guard.
Our new grater is really sharp and I was a bit worried that Goblin would grate off his fingers, but even with the guard he just found grating too difficult. So I ended up doing most of it.
Goblin did manage to help me measure the ingredients though. Its much easier with a cup measure than having to use the scales. We just put them all in the bowl at once. I realised I'd got rock salt rather than table salt out of the cupboard so we just skipped that ingredient.
The recipe said to add water until the mixture had a thick batter consistency but this never happened. I think it may have been because I was using the cheapest oats in the world.
To get it to stick together we ended up using a ton of honey - somewhat undermining the whole 'health' aspect of these bars. The mixture fitted perfectly in a 12 inch cake tin.
As per the instructions we put it in the oven for 25 minutes on 190C (gas mark 5, 375F). It was quite hard to tell whether it was cooked because it was still soft when we took it out of the oven. I turned it out onto a plate and left it to cool. Then I cut it into triangles.
Well they look really yummy but they did need salt (so much for thinking I could just skip that ingredient). The flavour was nice but the texture was quite odd - a bit slimy - like baked porridge (which is exactly what it is - and you have to remember again that I used very cheap oats).
Goblin was not impressed. He took one mouthful, gagged and refused to try any more. Hublet taunted me by explaining that the reason his treats taste so nice is
"because of the sheer quantity of sugar and butter I use, you made the mistake of using carrots and oats!"
So once again I have had a bit of a cooking fail (although I can't stop eating the stuff myself). But if any of you follow this blog regularly you will probably already know that Hublet is the cook in our house and most of my attempts at cooking take a downward turn. I'm pretty sure the quality of the oats had a significant effect on the results so please go visit The Little Things  and learn from a proper cook and hopefully yours will turn out better than mine.

Despite the results I'm sharing this with
One Artsy Mama

8 comments:

  1. I really shouldn't start each of my comments to you with laughter, but I am so tempted! How funny - the grater guard is hilarious, although very clever. I'll try it here :-)

    As always, thanks for sharing on Happy lil ❤'s are baking!

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  2. Your outcome looks a lot better than mine, at least it was stuck together. We have porridge most days and have discovered that cheap oats are getting poorer and poorer in quality so we now buy better oats for most things, except recipes were we add loads of sweet stuff.

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  3. What a great idea to protect little fingers. At first sight, I thought you were measuring the circumference of the carrot, then I slipped to the darkside for a second too :-) Love the fail ~ we posted a celery fail today. Process is the best!

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  4. My hubbers is the cook in our family too! I love the cardboard knuckle guard. My bigger kids are forever grating their fingers when using the cheese shredder. I will have to try this!

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  5. Replies
    1. Bummer it didn't turn out how you wanted, but it looks like Goblin still had a lot of fun! I am super impressed with your knuckle guard. Can't wait to try it with my kids.

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  6. I don't think it's possible for me to read one of your posts without a giggle or a smile! Love the knuckle guard - such a great idea. Shame about the baking fail but I'm so glad you shared anyway - I really loved this post. :)

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  7. thanks all, sorry I didn't reply to comments earlier, I have been losing the plot a bit lately. But I do loive getting comments. especially lovely ones like all these.

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