This week for Les Petits Chefs baking club, I had planned to teach them how to make ANZAC Biscuit Squares – an easy recipe that is basically one bowl and doesn’t take long to bake. But when I was making a list of ingredients to shop for I realised that coconut is rarely sold without the “may contain” warning for tree nuts and I have some severe allergies in the group this term so that was out.
A few people asked me on Instagram if you could just “leave out” the coconut but baking doesn’t work like that – you’d upset the ratio/ proportion of ingredients if you just leave one out without adjusting the others or subbing in something else. I thought about adding extra oats but that would be boring (and might require tinkering with the butter ratio). Enter: dried cranberries!
I played around with the amount of cranberries (with a brief interlude with some chocolate chips which completely melted, making a different kind of bar) and also made a few different iterations of this bar using both golden syrup and honey and landed on using honey for this version.
It’s still one-bowl and still delicious!
Melt the butter and honey and measure the flour, baking powder and oats…
(don’t worry, we levelled off the flour and the baking powder!)
I tested this recipe using weight and volume and for this recipe, volume, as long as it’s done correctly, works. So even though you’re dirtying your cup and spoon measures, it’s still one bowl. At home I would just place the bowl on the digital scale (<<< affiliate link but I love this one!) and measure everything in directly. At school we have very little equipment these days and just one scale so it was easier and faster to use volume measurements for this.
“It looks like granola!”
Yes, it does! Which means we did a good job mixing!
Meanwhile, two of the older students took on the very important job of lining the baking trays with parchment. We used butter to glue the parchment paper on the trays…
And finally the butter and honey were added to the dry ingredients!
“Smells SO GOOD!”
Since the trays were lined to perfection…
… we got to pour in the mixture and pack it in!
Perfection!
These only take about 20 minutes to bake but they need to sit in the pan for about 5 minutes once you have them out of the oven before you cut them, THEN they sit in the pan a further 5 minutes before you can remove them to a cooling rack to cool to room temperature.
I didn’t get a photo of the club’s version – many of them didn’t make it out of the school LOL! But here’s one of my test batches cooling in the pan (*I* was able to wait, unlike *some* people đ )
Want to make them yourself?
Cranberry Oat Bars
Easy cranberry oat bars - perfect for snacks, breakfast or anytime!
Ingredients
- 100g (2/3 cup) plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 100g (1 cup) large flake rolled oats
- 70g (1/2 cup) dried cranberries
- 60g (1/4 cup) packed brown sugar
- 50g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
- 113g (8 tablespoons/ 1 stick) salted butter
- 2 tablespoons honey
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ËF/ 180ËC. Line a square brownie pan (approx.
20 x 20cm/ 8 x 8 inches) with parchment paper, leaving some overhang on two sides to use as âhandlesâ to help you remove the squares from the pan. - Mix the flour, baking powder, oats, cranberries, brown sugar and granulated sugar in a large mixing bowl until all ingredients are well combined.
- Melt the butter and honey in a small pot over medium-high heat (you can also do this in the microwave).
- Pour the melted butter into the dry ingredients and use a sturdy rubber spatula to mix the butter through until all ingredients are wet (you shouldnât see any dry flour in the mix).
- Press the mixture into the lined pan and flatten it well, making sure the ingredients are evenly distributed in the pan. You can use the rubber spatula or your hands for this.
- Bake for 20 minutes until golden (the edges will be slightly darker).
- Remove from the oven and place the pan on a wire cooling rack. Let the pan cool for 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes and while the pan is still hot, gently cut into 12 pieces using the rubber spatula. Leave the cut squares in the pan for an additional 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes, use the parchment paper âhandlesâ, lift them out of the pan and place on a wire cooling rack (still in the parchment) and allow to cool.
- Once they are cool, you can separate them completely and store them in an airtight container at room temperature.
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Despite the coconut issue, it looks (from the photo) that they turned out very well and, judging by the speed of consumption, they were obviously tasty. Well done.