Oatmeal Bars

I've had a craving for oatmeal cookies. And coconut.
What could be better than an oatmeal cookies that tastes like an Almond Joy?

For the base of this cookie I looked at the Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe under the Quaker Oats lid.

Then I made a few adjustments...

Almond Joy Cookie Bars

• 1/2  cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1/2  cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2  cup granulated sugar
• 3 Tbls honey
• 2  eggs
• 1-1/2  teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4  cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1  teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 2 cups oatmeal (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 + cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
Beat together butter, sugars, and honey. Add eggs, vanilla and pinch of salt and beat again.
Stir in your flour and baking soda. Once combined stir in the remaining ingredients.
Press into pan (this may be difficult, the dough is very thick).

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until edges are golden brown and middle is set.
Wait until completely cool before cutting.

In hindsight, these are very similar to the "variations" method on the Quaker link above.
This wasn't on my lid of oats, and I do think the cookies would be overdone if baked for 30-35 minutes.
I took mine out after 20. The edge pieces were crisp and brown and the middles were perfect and gooey, but not undercooked.

Next time I may increase the whole wheat flour, and add some extra coconut on top. Or maybe some melted chocolate chips.
These didn't come out super sweet, so if you are looking for a sweeter bar, stick with the sugar amount recommended by Quaker.

I may attempt a version of these with all whole wheat flour. And perhaps some almond or coconut extract. If I could find a way to decrease the amount of butter in the recipe, these actually might be healthy!

That being said, I think all cookies should have butter. And these got two thumbs way up.
So why mess with a good thing?