“Will work for chocolate”
Summer in North India has become a drag, & I can’t wait for better days to come. I’ve been desperate to bake but lack motivation. Everything is HOT, & I almost don’t need to switch on the oven to bake. Power outages rule our days with electricity more absent than present. The kids summer vacations in this entire region have been extended in view of the heat wave. The mayhem at home continues…& in the midst of this, I still want to bake…
There are times that I really enjoy rolling out cookies at any time of the day, & find it entirely therapeutic. Not these days though. The heat is sapping, electricity is playing truant & humidity is making life worse. So I took a call & pressed the cookie dough into my tart pan, hoping some sort of brownie/cookie/bar would emerge… 
Scored lines through the unbaked dough to get 12 equal pieces (later I thought I might have managed 16 instead), sprinkled on some vanilla sugar from sachets my friend from Kiev regularly gets for me. The sachets remind me of the many dessert mix sachets I had picked up while on vacation in Moscow way back in 1995. Everything looked so good, and I picked up loads of chocolate & coffee mousses etc. It was only when we returned home, did I realise that all instructions were in Ukrainian & I couldn’t do anything with them. My limited knowledge of words like allo, da, idi suda, kharoshe, perciba didn’t help!! In those days it cost a fortune to call overseas, so my poor sachets expired silently!
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup demerera sugar
1/4 cup vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Fine vanilla sugar, for sprinkling (or sanding sugar)
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Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
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In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, oats, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.
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Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut butter into oat mixture until mixture resembles a coarse meal. In another medium bowl, mix together egg, buttermilk, and vanilla and almond extract until well combined. Stir in dried cranberries, chopped walnuts/chocolate chips.
- Add egg mixture to flour mixture; mix until well combined.
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Turn out dough into a lightly greased tart tin with a removable base, push it to cover the pan evenly & uniformly. Cut into 12 equal squares using a sharp knife; or roll out to 1-inch-thick rectangle, cut into 12 equal squares & transfer to a prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
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Bake for 18 to 20 minutes/ till done. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool slightly before serving.
This sounds absolutely fantastic. I love this combination. Please fed ex me some.
Wow these bars sound delicious, i love dried cranberries and with chocolate these are to die for!! Hey you can send one of the pic to Click:Stacks event, would be perfect!
Wow! I love all the flavors. They look and sound delicious. YUM.
Ur recipes and photos always rock Deeba…looks so perfect…
Deeba this is so scrumptious!
I just love looking at your posts. It's a feast for the eyes!
Wow, it can be so hard to get the motivation to bake when it is so hot and humid. These bars sound lovely!
I really understand the statement when you say u need not switch on the oven to bake. I also managed somehow to bake a cake today. I too have some dried cranberries,will try the cookies.I hope it rains soon.
As you know, I do love my chocolate and dried fruit! They are just such an awesome pair with the bitterness, the sweet, and the sour.
I'm going on a hike this weekend with some friends and lots of kids: I think I'll make these as a snakc on the top of the mountain. I think everyone will appreciate the energy-recharge coming from these lovely bars.
I feel for you… the heat always gets the better of me, it's just like it melts my brain! But, gotta say, baking without turning the oven on is an amusing picture 🙂
Hellooooooooooo!!
Will keep everything crossed that it cools down for you soon, we are having heatwave here – but nowhere near your temps.
The bars look great!!
Fantastic dish and the pics are too much i should say.. It makes me open my mouth as wide as I could.. yummmmmmmmmmm.. I am not able to stop telling.. its amazing.. 🙂
I am not here to flatter.. but I am awestruck. 🙂 Keep it going. will try your dishes and will be here often too..
Your bar cookies look great! The walnuts and dried cranberries sound perfect with the cocoa powder. Beautiful flat spoons too!
i just love everything that has gone into it!!
love that earthern coffee cup in the first pic. Im gonna get some the nest time i go to India! 🙂
Just look at those awesome ingredients! These must taste amazing!
amazing baking recipes and a great blog..i guess im a first timer here, but ur face looks familiar!!
Lovely, just lovely.
My sweet stomach is growling seeing these delights!!
You’ve also a wonderful technique shooting your excellent treats 🙂
Cheers,
Gera
We've had more rain than I ever remember here and cooler temperatures. Your bars look fantastic Deeba, thanks for braving the heat and making them!
These look and sound great and so wholesome! Yep, the heat is so annoying when we just want to bake!
Finally I get to post a comment on this! Tried so many times y'strday! 🙂 They look fab! And I really love the spoons!
these are going to be a huge hit with soeren (and me) scrumptious!
These bars sounds absolutely fantastic Deeba.
It is definitely hard to get motivated to bake in the heat of the summer. It is probably why we lose weight during the summer months:D These MS bars sound worthy of breking the cycle:D
LOL to the mystery dessert packages expiring quietly! I'm currently struggling with a German dessert book which James is kindly translating for me. It's funny how many cookery terms you don't learn in class!
The heat, the electricity and the humidity- I feel you on all counts, Deeba. Throwing it all into a tart tin and hoping for the best really paid off- sounds like something I would do 🙂
Oh No, it doesn't sound very nice with so much heat. Those bars look great though.
Scrumptious bar cookies! I love this combination of chocolate, cherries, and walnuts!
What an explosion of wonderful flavors. Soft, chewy and crunchy – these have it all!
Your bars look incredible. Picture perfect.
I really enjoy all the morphing you have going along here. If I get this: some cherry became cranberry – sounds lovely – some flour became cocoa and it all makes me smile; just what goes on in my kitchen. Your photos are glorious: I'm in love with your mug and the spoons AND the bars! The flavors seem wonderful together.
While I'm not have problems with the electricity, I certainly can relate with the heat – it simply is not my style and especially when the nights never cool down I turn into a puddle. August temperatures in June bring me to my knees. I think it's going to be a HOT summer here for a long 2 or 3 more months.
Oh, these bars are gorgeous. It's nowhere near the holidays and I'm already thinking that these would make such great hoiiday gifts for my neighbors.
Like the way you use the springform tart pan to make these bars. The scalloped edges look lovely.
This sounds like a really wonderful flavor combination. I'm going to file these away to bake around the holidays!
These are absolutely amazing Deeba! I love them, the pics so beauty! xxGloria
What a great flavor combo! I love the buttermilk you added too, they look SO good!
I guess that with me living in summer-like weather all year round, I take baking for granted and just do it. But I have spent summers in the US where it was balmy and could completely understand the lack of urge to bake.
Lovely cookie bars Deeba. I just made cookies with dried cherries from my new baking book – black forest cookies.
Will work for Deeba's bars.
I love how you used a tart tin for this recipe. Great idea. I should really think outside the box more, too. I know what you mean about the heat. Brisbane probably comes no where near close to what you experience, but I dread those days it's just too hot to even think!
Hi,
I have been following your blog but unfortunately dont have an oven to try out your wonderful recipes(muffins,cookies,cupcakes,breads)..Can you recommend me any good brand?could you please tell me which brand oven do you use?
Thanks in Advance
Nina
Hi Nina, can you mail me at vindee@airtelmail.in. Thanks Deeba
Those bar cookies look and sound fantastic! what a wonderful idea!
Cheers,
Rosa
Yum. I never think to do bars in tart pans like that. But how clever – non-stick, removal bottoms and a lovely fluted edge!
Thank you!
Looks great!
hi Deeba,
Have mailed you..
Thanks,
Nina
Wat a lovely bars..just like store bought..
That's a simple recipe for those stunning and egg substitution is easy too. Yay!
I made those today and they are extremely good! I replaced the dried cherries by sultanas and it was perfect! Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Rosa
Am new to baking but am loving it too! These bars/cookies make me drool, all ur clicks are awesome!!!
I did these for Staci’s bake’n blog party – they were fabulous so thank you !!