chocolate oatmeal almost-candy bars

The worst part of not loving the Tuesdays with Dorie recipe for the week is having to tell everyone about it. Not only do I feel like a Negative Nellie, but the flood of “sorry you didn’t like it!” comments starts, and, honestly, it isn’t such a big deal. There are many worse things in life than not getting excited about a dessert.

Plus, I’m not really involved with TWD to eat desserts; I’m in it for the learning experience of baking the desserts. I find out about different baking tricks, and I get to compare my results with everyone else, and I get an excuse to bake every week, and I get to make things I might not ordinarily choose for myself, and I get to interact with other bloggers.

Plus, when you’re making the entire book of recipes, of course there will be a few that aren’t your favorites. I had a feeling about this one from the beginning – I don’t really crave candy bars, so the “almost candy bars” title didn’t bode well.

Plus, it’s all relative. It isn’t like I had to spit it out because it was so bad or anything; it’s just that I found myself eating around the chocolate filling to get to the cookie parts. Mm, cookies.

Besides, everyone else liked it. And I had fun baking it, and I didn’t hate it or anything, and I liked the cookie portion quite a bit. It’s really just an oatmeal cookie base with a chocolate-sweetened condensed milk feeling; if that sounds better to you than it did to me, Lillian has posted the recipe.

One year ago: Berry Surprise Cake

Comments

  1. Well, I’m not sorry at all!
    😉
    I didn’t think I would like these much either, since I hate raisins and don’t love cinnamon or peanuts. I left all those things out and now can’t stop eating them. My favourite jeans are not thanking me.

    There’s always next week!

  2. Isn’t taste a funny thing? I mean, one person’s is not another’s. And yet cookbooks and recipe-developing make it seem otherwise, as if there’s some standard out there for what’s what. I can remember people being aghast when I saw I don’t like some standard recipe (James Beard’s Chicken With Forty Cloves Of Garlic comes to mind). It’s just not my thing. But probably somebody else’s.

  3. Hmm, I can empathize, though I think this is one of those things that I know I shouldn’t like but would probably end up mindlessly eating anyway 🙂

  4. Well they look delicious anyway! And I do love chocolate, but that looks crazy rich to me. Once I replenish my oatmeal supply, I may try these out with a thinner chocolate layer. Also, yum, cookies.

  5. I have a reverse feeling about this cookie/candy. To me, it was all cookie. I don’t usually eat oatmeal cookies so I found that I like them, don’t love them, but definitely like them. The chocolate was the best part though.

    I want to know how you got yours to be so symmetrical. My layers were skewed and although that does not bother me, your looks lovely.

  6. I am glad you did an honest review. That’s the way it should be 🙂

  7. I think they are pretty tasty, but I could probably reduce the filling by half since, like you, the cookie part was calling my name. I love how yours look in the round glass dish 🙂

  8. Love the pics! The cookie art was pretty yummy. The chocolate layer was almost too much for me. Almost.

  9. Ahh, sometimes everyone just doesn’t like everything. That’s why there are so many different recipes in the world. And how boring would it be if we were all robots and all liked the exact same things. And I think its just fine to admit that you don’t love everything you cook.
    Love your blog!

  10. It looks good to me…I guess I will have to try them to find out for sure.

  11. Love that you baked it in a round clear dish…looks perfect!

  12. We loved this recipe, but there have been others that missed the mark. Yours look great.
    Mimi

  13. Elizabeth (gpointewife) says:

    Bridget, this looks wonderful! I really love your blog…it’s one of my favorites.

  14. Bridget, your chocolate layer looks REALLY thick, I’m wondering if that’s why you weren’t a huge fan. I made these this week after seeing them on another blog, and my chocolate layer was less than half as thick as your pictures show it. I’m wondering if it was the baking dish you used – spreading them thinner may have helped a bit! I also eliminated the raisins, they didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the recipe.

  15. bridget says:

    Amy – You’re right that I used the wrong size pan, so my chocolate layer is about twice as thick as it should be. However, my cookie layers should be similarly thicker, so it should all be in proportion.

  16. Maybe you could have sent these over to me, because all those things that didn’t appeal to you, sounc exactly like something I would love 🙂 But it’s great that you are admitting you didn’t like the recipe, I trust blogs that give true reviews much more, rather than just loving everything!!!