Vegan Cookie Bars

One of my goals for the new year was to expand into baking a bit more - I've never been much for baking, but in the interest of developing a more well rounded Veggie Guy, I decided it was time to give it a go.

I wasn't really sure what to call these - I got the inspiration from something called "Congo bars", but those called for walnuts and coconut - two things I'm not overly fond of. They also weren't vegan. Anyway, my wife simply dubbed them "cookie bars", so that is what they shall be named.

The end result was indeed quite cookie-esque, if you ignore that they're about 1/2 inch thick, and that they're in bar form, rather than the traditional circular configuration.

I managed to find vegan peanut butter chips at a local store called Raisin Rack. Frankly, I've never seen them anywhere else (and frankly, as often as RR changes things around, I may never be able to find them again). I'm pretty sure you could substitute 1/2 cup of peanut butter for the chips and life would be just fine.

So here we go...


Vegan Cookie Bars

• 2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp salt
• 3/4 cup Earth Balance vegan butter
• 8 oz light brown sugar
• Ener-G egg replacer equivalent to 3 eggs*
• 4 oz vegan chocolate chips
• 4 oz peanut butter chips (or 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter)

*The Ener-G package directions say that 1 1/2 tbsp Ener-G plus 2 tbsp warm water = 1 egg. I doubled the water for this recipe so the batter would mix better.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl, mix melted Earth Balance and brown sugar. Add to flour mixture.

Fold in prepared Ener-G egg replacer (about 1/3 at a time).

Mix in chocolate chips or peanut butter chips/peanut butter.

Transfer batter to a greased, lightly floured 9x13 glass baking dish. Press down batter evenly with a spatula (or your hands, if you're impatient like me and don't like to look for utensils).

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before cutting into bars.

This is the type of dessert I'd take to a gathering of omnis - they're relatively familiar-looking, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who could recognize that these cookie bars don't contain eggs or dairy.




Anyway, that's enough of that. Something else I wanted to bring up...

Maida over at Mission Vegan posted an alternative to fried rice in stir fry dishes - wheat berries! I'm quite intrigued by this idea and - while I haven't tried it myself yet - I thought I'd share. I can't wait to give it a go!

Ok, back to the mad dash of "oh my gods, the weekend is almost over and I've still got a ton of s*** to do!" Yay!