Let me preface this as calling it the baking disaster that almost ended my baking career.
It all started as a craving for cookie dough.
For those of you who don’t know, it’s finals time for college students, which means a significant rise in unnecessary fighting and stress-eating.
So rather that starting my own fight club, I settled for making a big bowl of cookie dough and eating it with a spoon.
My roommates give me a lot of flak about my dough-eating habits, so I left eggs out of this recipe. Fine. Happy?
I love pumpkin. Pumpkin pie. Bread. Oatmeal. Pancakes. Pumpkin seeds. Carving pumpkins. I could survive on pumpkins forever and die happy.
So seeing that sad can of pumpkin sitting there, I reasoned with myself- I can totally add that to my cookie dough. It’ll taste great! I love pumpkin. Besides, it’s almost out of pumpkin season all-together, so I should get rid of it.
Worst decision of my life.
My delicious chocolate chip cookie dough turned into orange goo, with chocolate chips. I literally had to walk away for five minutes.
Quick Recap: Made delicious cookie dough. Ruined delicious cookie dough. Ran out of brown sugar and chocolate chips in the process. Still was craving cookie dough. I had no choice but to try to salvage the mess I made.
1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of oats, 1/4 honey, and 1/8 cup of creamed sugar later, I returned my orange Play-Doh into something edible.
To test how it baked after being changed so drastically, I literally baked one cookie. …I don’t think I can actually call it a cookie with a good conscience. It didn’t spread, and it was kind of squishy.
But other than that, I swear the flavor was pretty good! I bribed a friend into trying it, and got his vote of confidence. Mostly. If I turned it into bars instead of cookies. And renamed it.
So, the Punkie Bars were born.
Punkie Bar- a dense, soft pumpkin/cookie dough bar.
As I said, they have an interesting texture, but they have a great flavor. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend making them if squishy/dough-y bars freak you out.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 c. Margarine
- 2 c. Flour
- 1/2 c. Brown Sugar
- 1/2 c. Sugar
- 1/2 Tbs. Vanilla
- 1 can Pumpkin
- 1/2 c. Oats
- 1/4 c. Honey
- 1-2 c. Chocolate Chips
- Pumpkin Pie Spice/ All Spice
- Cinnamon
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cream the sugars, margarine, and vanilla.
- Sift in flour and oats.
- Mix-in can of pumpkin. (This is where it gets dicey.)
- Add chocolate chips and honey.
- Grease an 11 by 7 pan, and slide the dough into it.
- Bake until the dense dough solidifies. (Mine was in for like 35 minutes.)
**Note: The bars on the edges of the pan get done faster- obviously. So I cut them out and left the middle pieces in to bake longer.
As much fun as this adventure was, next time I think I’ll just stick to my bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough and a spoon.
Two thoughts–when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
However, more important would be it pays to plan ahead.
And you should stress that one should NEVER eat raw cookie dough as this is quite dangerous.
Steve, spontaneity is what makes life exciting! You clearly haven’t enjoyed the opportunity of screwing up a kitchen masterpiece because of an adjustment you made at the last minute.
As for dough, eating cookie dough is only dangerous in terms of getting salmonella. My recipe is vegan, so I didn’t use any eggs! Surprised you didn’t catch that.
Finally, last I heard, Shavuot isn’t for a few weeks. Good thing I post more than once a month. 😉
Great save!
Thanks Susan!
Actually, this would be a perfect time for nice recipe in conjunction with the upcoming holiday of Shavuoth; maybe some of your jewish friends should explain it to you.
These bars make me think of the Vikings…and I LOVE the Vikings. Therefore, I love these bars. You rock.