Monday 14 April 2008

chewy sweet-mores

Found this great recipe in the latest issue of Momentum, a magazine for bicyclists and self-propelled people. It's for sweet-mores, a homemade chewy thing something like an Eat-more bar, and the recipe comes from a book called Health by Chocolate. That title, incidentally, has my vote for second-best title of the year. The hands-down best title goes to my friend Bev's novel Feral.
I've modified the recipe here a bit from the original. These no-bake, granola bar substitutes are supposed to be adaptable to suit different tastes.
Needed:
1 6-cup saucepan (better try a cheap thrift store pan the first time, not your best)

1 cup peanut butter (or almond butter or other similar product such as No-Nuts golden pea butter. )
1 cup honey (I used liquid honey; I don't think hard or creamed honey would work so easily)
cocoa powder to taste (recipe calls for 1 cup; the second time, I used only 3 tablespoons)
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
sesame seeds or sunflower seeds to taste (1/2 cup to 1 cup)

Put peanut butter and honey in saucepan, and heat gently until bubbling, said the recipe. Hah! I heated gently and stirred the heck out of the thick goo with a chopstick to try to keep the bottom from burning before the top got warm.
Remove from heat, and stir in cocoa powder. Stir in about 1/2 cup coconut and 1/2 cup sesame seeds. Keep adding coconut and seeds till you get a texture you like. The mixture should be too thick to stir, and look something like an Eat-More bar: lots of stuff mixed into dark brown goo.
The mixture will remain warm for a few minutes while you're mixing. Don't let it get cold in the saucepan.
The recipe says to press the mixture into a pan, and when it's cooling, slice it into bars. I guessed rightly that the mixture would set like rock when it got cold. Instead, I recommend shaping the mixture into manageable pieces while it's warm. Butter your hands, and put two Tupperware-style sandwich containers on the table. Scoop out teaspoonfuls of the mixture, pinch them into round, flat cookie shapes and put them into the plastic sandwich containers. You can roll each shape in coconut as you make it.
These cookie shapes will get dense, almost hard and chewy as they cool down. They will also soften and leak peanut oil on a warm day, so don't just wrap a couple in a bit of plastic wrap and stick 'em in a pocket. I'd recommend a Tupperware (they tend to seal well) or a Zip-lock snack bag -- maybe double bag if leaks would be a problem.

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