South African crunchies/Hawermoutkoekies/Oat meal bars

When I saw the name crunchies, it got my immediate attention. They are the Hawermoutkoekies/ South African oat meal bars. We both husband and wife likes everything crunchy. So I decide to give it a try. I read that they are the favorite cookies of most South African children, so I got one more reason to try them. When I discuss with my taste tester (hubby), he give me green signal to go ahead. 

Next job was to find recipes and I found lot of recipes, most of them in Afrikaans so I decided to translate with help of Google friend. And finally settled with this one . Other versions you can find from here and here. They are similar to our granola bar with my favorite ingredient coconut. I modified the recipe by adding some fresh pineapple pieces, flax seed meal, reducing some sugar amount, and replacing half of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour and golden syrup with honey and adding toasted walnuts. 

Trust me they are dangerously delicious, hard to prevent your hands from picking more and more pieces at a single stretch. Even licking the finger tips can’t be avoided. I think I will bargain this one for granola bars. They came out soft, if you need crispy increase the water content and bake for some more time. I am going stick with the recipe that I modified and going to only add some extras dry fruits. If you like granola bars try this at least once. I will make them again in a healthier version by exchanging whole wheat flour for all purpose flour, brown sugar instead of sugar and olive oil instead of butter. 

What you need
All purpose flour: 1/5 cup
Whole Wheat flour: 1/5 cup
Oats: 1/3 cup ( I used rolled oats not quick one)
Desiccated coconut: 1/3 cup
Flax seed meal: 1 tablespoon
Cocoa: ½ tablespoon
Pineapple chopped: ½ cup( I used fresh pineapple)
Butter: 1/4 cup
Walnut: ¼ cup
Water: ½ tablespoon
Sugar: ¼ cup
Baking soda: ½ teaspoon
Salt: 1/8 teaspoon
Honey: ¼ teaspoon
Vanilla extract: 1 teaspoon

How I made

Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit. Butter the base and sides of a pie pan or a loaf pan.( Use parchment paper in the base so that bars won’t stick to the bottom of pan).

Lightly toast the walnut for 10 minutes in the preheated oven and chopped into fine pieces and keep aside.

In a bowl melt butter, sugar and honey in medium heat until the butter gets melted or use microwave 1 minute at high. Once butter honey sugar mixture get cooled stir in vanilla extract and water and keep aside.

In a large bowl, combine the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa, desiccated coconut and flax seed meal and keep aside.

Combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients, and gently fold in pineapple pieces and chopped walnuts.

Transfer the mixture into a buttered pie pan, or loaf pan.

And bake for 20 minutes at 350 degree F or until they become brown in color. Gently press down the sides if they seem to rise too much. 

Remove from the oven and cut into squares. Switch off the oven. Return crunchies to the oven, for 10 minutes to dry out. 

Cool completely before removing from pie pan or loaf pan.

Enjoy any time.

Preparation time: 35 minutes
Yield: 20 bars
Verdict: Deadly delicious
Will you make it again: Yes I will.


Swathi