Maple Pecan Crunch Bars

The other day I wanted to make cookies.  Of course, since I am Cookie Monster’s grandmother, I am always looking for new recipes.  I scoured through some of my books and found a recipe in a book called “Cooking with Love and Cereal” by Betty McMichael with Karen McDonald, 1981.  The recipe was called Pecan Drop Cookies.  I liked that it called for vegetable oil.  It also called for cornflakes and oatmeal.  Sounded good.

I almost ended up with a minor disaster.  It was probably me and not the recipe, but a red flag should have gone up when there was only 2 eggs and 1/2 c. vegetable oil to moisten almost 9 cups of dry ingredients.  I had decided to use Post Maple Pecan Crunch Cereal in place of the corn flakes.  This cereal may not have crushed down as much as corn flakes would have.  At any rate, when everything was mixed together, the mixture was so stiff it was impossible to drop at all.

What to do now?  Well, some sort of liquid needed to be added to the mixture.  I added milk, based on checking another oatmeal cookie recipe I have that uses vegetable oil.   Now the mixture was a little too soft.  I decided  to put the mixture in a jelly roll pan and make bar cookies.  In the end,  I got a pretty good cookie.  I have waited a few days to post this to see if the bars would remain moist.  I now have a good recipe for a moist and chewy cereal bar.  I am now going to try this with the Banana Nut Crunch and the Cranberry Almond Crunch cereals also.

Maple Pecan Crunch Bars

2 eggs
1 c. sugar
1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. maple flavoring
1/2 c. milk
2 1/4 c. Post Maple Pecan Cereal, well crushed
2 1/4 c. quick oats
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. pecan, toasted

In medium-size bowl, beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored.  Add sugar and beat well.  Add vegetable oil, vanilla, maple flavoring, and milk.  Beat well.  In a large bowl, combine cereal, quick oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pecans.  Stir egg mixture into dry mixture and mix well.  Spread into well-greased 10x15 jelly roll pan.  Bake at 350 degrees 20-25 minutes.  Do not over bake.  Bars are like chewy brownies and may not seem to be done.  I forgot to count, but I think I got about 4 dozen bars.