On Tuesday, I  cubed and dried 3-4 apples and two peaches.  I placed the cubed fruit on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and let it sit in the oven at 200 degrees until the desired degree of dried-ness is achieved.  It ended up being 2+ hours over the course of two days.  Then I forgot the cookie sheets were still in the oven when I pre-heated the oven for something else.  Luckily I noticed early on, so the fruit wasn’t dried into jerky!

I had a recipe, but since I didn’t have any of the actual ingredients listed, I really can’t say I used the recipe for more than a guideline.  To show how bad it was, I didn’t have baking powder (I really need to go grocery shopping!), so I used cream of tartar and baking soda and corn starch as a substitute.  Then, I didn’t read the process through before I started working through the “guidelines”, so I ended up having to use an old hand mixer  that was used when I acquired it in 1989, instead of my nice Kitchen-Aid that can do most of the work for me (while I check the football game).

The guidelines wanted dried tropical fruits, but I had my  non-tropical,  dried fruits.  I threw in some chopped dates, does that make it tropical?  Also, it wanted whole grain granola that I didn’t have, so I used a flakes and clusters cereal that the kids didn’t care for as cereal…

I actually had the all purpose and whole wheat flours called for, so I got that part right.  🙂  And I had the eggs and milk and some sweetened coconut to put on top.  It ended up working out okay.  The bars were a bit dense and chewy, a friend said they go well with coffee, and my 14 year old ate several when he got home from school.

“guidelines” granola bar

Coconut makes the fruit tropical! Why didn’t I think of that before?