Happy Birthday!

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Welcome to Savor the Earth’s one-year anniversary—two days late!  An untimely modem failure befell our household (when’s a broken internet ever not untimely?), and I tried to snail this post along to bring you another delicious dessert recipe, but alas, my connectivity wouldn’t allow it.  We’re back online again (and badder than ever, of course) so now this tasty treat’s comin’ at ya!

The folks at Maranatha have come out with a couple of new all-natural products:  a dark chocolate peanut spread and a dark chocolate almond spread.  Inspired by Italy’s famous Nutella, that smooth gianduja’d spread of chocolate and hazelnuts, these chocolaty nut butters contain no hydrogenated fats and no artificial anything.  I’ve only tried the peanut version so far (work perk!) and I found it deeply cocoa’d, well-burnished with roasty goober depth.  A little much for me straight outta the jar, but then again, I’m not even a Nutella kinda gal.

I smelled potential and adapted a recipe from eatmycakenow.blogspot.com for these crumbly bar cookies.  Rather irresistible, the pan was banished to the laundry room, lest I show up at work sans samples!

These scrumptious sweets helped keep my mind off my disconnect.  In fact, my mind/belly became so disconnected that I forgot to take a photo before we ate all the bars.  Sorry!

CRUMBLIN’ CRUMBLEBARS makes one 9” X 13” panful

• 242 grams (2 cups) organic all-purpose flour.  Whole Foods usually offers the best value with their 365 brand in the 5-pound bag.
• 160 grams (just over 1¾ cups) organic quick oats.  I stocked up with sale prices on bulk oats at Newflower Market last week.  Their regular prices on bulk oats are fair, too.
• 270 grams (1 1/3 cups, packed) organic light brown sugar.  Central Market’s own brand in the 1½ pound bag typically sells for less than other brands.
• 1 teaspoon baking powder.  I use Rumford, aluminum-free and non-GMO.
• ¼ teaspoon salt.  I like Real Salt.
• 2 sticks organic butter, melted. Organic Valley makes about the best standard butter around.  Today’s the last day for Natural Grocers incredible sale on OV 1-pound blocks for $3.99.  Stock up!
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 13-ounce jar Maranatha all-natural dark chocolate peanut (or almond) spread, no cooler than room temperature.  Available at Central Market for $ 4.29.  I haven’t looked elsewhere yet.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9” X 13” baking pan with aluminum foil.  I do this by fitting the foil to the outside of the pan (upside down) and before placing the foil inside the pan.

Thoroughly combine the first 5 ingredients (flour through the salt).  Stir the vanilla into the butter and stir the butter into the dry ingredients until well distributed.  Reserve 1½ cups of this mixture for the topping and spread the rest onto the bottom of the lined pan.  Gently press the crumbs down so no foil shows through.

Dollop the chocolate spread all over the base and carefully spread it out to the edges.  The sticky stuff will grab the crumbly bottom and give you a little bit of a hard time, à la La Brea, but spacing out your dollops helps minimize this.  Evenly crumble the reserved topping all over the surface.

Bake on a center rack in the oven for about 25 minutes, until the crumbles are golden brown and firm.

Here’s the challenge.  You’ve got to let this pan of temptation cool off for at least 1¼ hours!  Go walk the dog, do some chores, take a nap, whatever will keep you away from that molten mass of messy mmm.

When the time’s up, lift the whole piece out of the pan using the foil.  Cut into serving size bars (how big a serving’s up to you!) preferably with a bench scraper, or you can use a large chef’s knife.

Enjoy! Happy birthday to my blog.  Happy birthday to my blog…

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