August Cookie Carnival—Zucchini Carrot Bars and Coconut Cherry Bars

Giveaway reminder at the bottom of this post!

  Wanna join the carnival?  Bake along with us once a month. 

Quick post here for this month’s Cookie Carnival.  I made both recipes a couple weeks ago.  First up—the Betty Crocker Coconut Cherry Bars.

I made the crust in the food processor.  Pulsing until crumbly and the butter was mixed in.  I pressed that into an 8x8 inch square pan.  The recipe is quite simple.  I used chopped almonds, the recipe just calls for nuts, but coconut and almonds are meant to be. 

Kevin doesn’t like maraschino cherries.  So I just dotted a few halved cherries over half the pan.  These bars baked just fine.  They taste good—coconutty.

With the other half of the bars, I cut them, then drizzled each piece with some melted chocolate.  (Almond Joy!) 

We thought these were pretty good.  I just had a few bites.  Knowing what was in these (a lot of fat and calories), I chose not to eat much.  Kevin said they were pretty good. 

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Next up—the Zucchini Carrot Bars from Kelloggs.  These bars were simple to make, though I did not enlist the help of any of the boys.  (They would not have liked knowing we were putting vegetables in something yummy.)  When they saw the finished bars and asked what they were, I told them they were spice bars.  I left the cloves out of the recipe, I sure thought I had some, but cannot find any.  I used freshly grated nutmeg and for the egg whites, I used powdered egg whites.  Worked great.

I liked these, but did think the lemon glaze on top overpowered any other flavors.   I would rather have had a vanilla glaze to have the spices stand out more.  And I wished there would have been nuts in the bars for some crunch.  I might make these again and use coconut oil and whole wheat flour, maybe even try agave instead of some of the sugar.

These bars worked great for using up a little more of that zucchini.  The recipe from Kelloggs says to use Raisin Bran cereal in the bars, I kicked it up a bit and used some Raisin Bran Extra with cranberries, raisins, yogurty clusters, sliced almonds.  Good stuff, love that cereal. 

And that’s all I have for you today.  Oh wait—have you entered the giveaway I’m having to win an EatSmart kitchen scale?  Leave me a comment on the giveaway post.  You have until Tuesday, August 31 to enter.