Coconut cookie bars
What happens when you are low on the beloved tahini? Make coconut butter on the cheap!, Just take coconut shreds and blend to drippy butter in yer trusty kitchen appliance, couldn't be easier, so you don't have to burn a hole in your pocket to obtain a teeny jar of the branded "creamed coconut".
I love coconut butter, because it behaves so uniquely as a strange fusion of nut butter and coconut oil. It doesn't oilify (yes, I invented that word) your baking because of the solids, and turns to rock at room temperature, making it ideal for raw goodies. In baked goods, it acts as a binder, but is a lot lighter than nut butters. It creates something chewy and crumbly, but not heavy, and infused with that sweet coconut flavour.
Why did I run out of tahini nobody asks? Well, stress goes in two directions when it comes to how I manage.
Hypothesis 1: I shall work madly around the clock until the work-load seems manage-able.
Hypothesis 2: I shall eat my way through these dark times, constant fuel for my hyper-active neurons!
......and hypothesis 2 was tested this time around, to work through my exam mishaps. I cannot say I felt very flash when I hit the pillows, but I slept smoothly through my food baby. I consider myself professionally good at sleeping, having mastered sleeping in a series of unconventional places:
-Curled up on the back seat of a bus.
-Wedged in an economy class aeroplane chair.
-Sitting slumped in a lecture theatre.
-Similarly, sitting in a lecture and resting my forehead on the hard spine of my book.
-Lying on concrete (as long as the sun is cozy!)
I pride myself on conking out under 5 minutes, although I do feel mild shame that I cannot focus when the lecturers are teaching an incredibly fascinating subject, and with amazing energy at 8 AM or 3 PM.....
Anyway...the recipe! alternative butter based like my other cookie bar recipe, but quite diverse flavour, and a chewier texture, with buds of crunchy cacao nibs which goes oh-so-beautifully with coconut, a sort of fruity flavour
Coconut Cookie Bars
~use an 8 in square pan~
16-20 serves, dependent on how you cut it
Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut butter
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup plant-based milk (I used rice)
1/2 cup dark brown/coconut sugar
1/4 cup maple/brow rice syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp natural vanilla essence
2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons ground flax
4 tablespoons water
1 cup oat flour
2 cups oats
pinch of salt
1 cup dates (chopped)
1/4 cup cacao nibs (or more...)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180 celcius/ 360 fahrenheit.
Grease and line the tin with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix the flax with the water.
Melt the coconut butter and oil in a small pot over a low heat. Add the milk, sugar and syrup and allow to reach roughly body temperature. Now you can safely mix said ingredients without awkward separation. Add the flax egg, cinnamon and vanilla and gently stir through.
Add all remaining ingredients and stir until combined.
Pour mixture into the pan and flatten with a spatula or similar.
Refrigerate for at leat 1/2 hour.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until the top has coloured nicely.
Allow to cool completely before slicing in the tin with a sharp knife (or you will have tasty crumble topping instead).
Oh, and of course, some updates!
It turns out cats are vindictively hard to draw on the quick. Wellllll, go hard or go home, I endeavor to keep chipping away at the pictures I have started, keep an eye out for some progress shots!
The yoga is definitely the easier part. It isn't hard to find just 15 minutes (or more) to devote to it every day, whether it is a YouTube tutorial or revisiting our gaiam dvds. Fingers crossed the left side split will become doable later on (SO close!).
Furthermore, my recent kitchen ventures have led me to experiment with aquafaba (find out more about what the heck that is here), and has yielded me with a chocolate mousse to rival Edmond's cookbook! Maybe a sneaky extra post on that near the end of the week!
Question: Have you tried the hopped on the aquafaba bandwagon?
I love coconut butter, because it behaves so uniquely as a strange fusion of nut butter and coconut oil. It doesn't oilify (yes, I invented that word) your baking because of the solids, and turns to rock at room temperature, making it ideal for raw goodies. In baked goods, it acts as a binder, but is a lot lighter than nut butters. It creates something chewy and crumbly, but not heavy, and infused with that sweet coconut flavour.
Why did I run out of tahini nobody asks? Well, stress goes in two directions when it comes to how I manage.
Hypothesis 1: I shall work madly around the clock until the work-load seems manage-able.
Hypothesis 2: I shall eat my way through these dark times, constant fuel for my hyper-active neurons!
......and hypothesis 2 was tested this time around, to work through my exam mishaps. I cannot say I felt very flash when I hit the pillows, but I slept smoothly through my food baby. I consider myself professionally good at sleeping, having mastered sleeping in a series of unconventional places:
-Curled up on the back seat of a bus.
-Wedged in an economy class aeroplane chair.
-Sitting slumped in a lecture theatre.
-Similarly, sitting in a lecture and resting my forehead on the hard spine of my book.
-Lying on concrete (as long as the sun is cozy!)
I pride myself on conking out under 5 minutes, although I do feel mild shame that I cannot focus when the lecturers are teaching an incredibly fascinating subject, and with amazing energy at 8 AM or 3 PM.....
Anyway...the recipe! alternative butter based like my other cookie bar recipe, but quite diverse flavour, and a chewier texture, with buds of crunchy cacao nibs which goes oh-so-beautifully with coconut, a sort of fruity flavour
Coconut Cookie Bars
~use an 8 in square pan~
16-20 serves, dependent on how you cut it
Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut butter
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup plant-based milk (I used rice)
1/2 cup dark brown/coconut sugar
1/4 cup maple/brow rice syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp natural vanilla essence
2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons ground flax
4 tablespoons water
1 cup oat flour
2 cups oats
pinch of salt
1 cup dates (chopped)
1/4 cup cacao nibs (or more...)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180 celcius/ 360 fahrenheit.
Grease and line the tin with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix the flax with the water.
Melt the coconut butter and oil in a small pot over a low heat. Add the milk, sugar and syrup and allow to reach roughly body temperature. Now you can safely mix said ingredients without awkward separation. Add the flax egg, cinnamon and vanilla and gently stir through.
Add all remaining ingredients and stir until combined.
Pour mixture into the pan and flatten with a spatula or similar.
Refrigerate for at leat 1/2 hour.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until the top has coloured nicely.
Allow to cool completely before slicing in the tin with a sharp knife (or you will have tasty crumble topping instead).
Oh, and of course, some updates!
It turns out cats are vindictively hard to draw on the quick. Wellllll, go hard or go home, I endeavor to keep chipping away at the pictures I have started, keep an eye out for some progress shots!
The yoga is definitely the easier part. It isn't hard to find just 15 minutes (or more) to devote to it every day, whether it is a YouTube tutorial or revisiting our gaiam dvds. Fingers crossed the left side split will become doable later on (SO close!).
Furthermore, my recent kitchen ventures have led me to experiment with aquafaba (find out more about what the heck that is here), and has yielded me with a chocolate mousse to rival Edmond's cookbook! Maybe a sneaky extra post on that near the end of the week!
Question: Have you tried the hopped on the aquafaba bandwagon?
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