Oatmeal Brownie Bars

I'm very fond of oat bars, both filled bars and flapjacks, so imagine my delight on finding a recipe which put brownie batter between the oat layers! I can't remember now what I was looking for when I found this recipe at Land O' Lakes, but it was immediately bookmarked to be made as soon as possible.

The chance came when I needed something to share with CT, who was having a meal with us. We haven't seen him as much as expected since he moved into his new home, which is a Good Thing, as it means he's managing better than I expected, but I miss baking for him, and I'm sure he misses home cooked treats too. I thought these Oatmeal Brownie Bars would be ideal as they would be fairly sturdy when wrapped for him to take home.

I followed the recipe exactly, except that I baked it in a slightly smaller tin (a 12" x 8" tray) and I added about 100g of small fudge chunks to the topping. This added a nice butterscotch flavour, but wasn't really necessary as the bars were rich and sweet enough - I only added the fudge bits to clear the store cupboard of at least one half-used package. It was hard to judge when the second baking was enough. I left them for the whole 18 minutes, as I was using a smaller pan, but 15 minutes would have been better, as the edges of the brownie had cooked a little too much and had lost some of the moist fudginess of the centre. You can see what I mean in the photograph above

The bars where the brownie was still gooey were fantastic - both for flavour and the fudgy texture - although the pieces where the brownie had overcooked were still delicious. The combination of the oaty layers and the brownie was good too - a base layer of solid oaty biscuit made the whole bar more substantial than a brownie on it's own, while not detracting from the depth of the chocolate flavour. This is definitely going to be a recipe I use again!