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Chewy Oatmeal Bar Cookies

A chewy oat-based cookie bar made with oats, flour, raisins, walnuts, tofu, and egg.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chewy Oatmeal Bar Cookies

Oven350°F
Time20 to 25 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly coat a 13 x 9-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.

  2. Place raisins or dried cranberries in a small bowl, cover with boiling water, and set aside to plump for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. If using walnuts, spread them in a small baking pan and toast in the oven until fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes.

Make the batter

  1. In a medium bowl, combine both flours, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in oats and wheat germ. Drain the raisins or dried cranberries. Coarsely chop the walnuts if using. Set aside.

  2. In a food processor, process tofu until smooth. Add egg, oil, both sugars, and vanilla. Process until the mixture is smooth, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the reserved flour mixture, raisins or dried cranberries, and walnuts; pulse on/off several times just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Using a spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread it into an even layer.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until light golden and firm to the touch, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Bars will keep, well-wrapped at room temperature, for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1115Calories
40 gProtein
36 gFat
157 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 13 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Oat1/2 cup dry (40g)154
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Egg Substitute1 large egg (50g)78
Tofu100g firm76
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Wheatnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Walnut + wheattop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rolled oats
Adds chewy body and a hearty texture to the bars.
Silken tofu
Provides moisture and a tender, creamy crumb in place of much of the fat.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the bars as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to lift it and give a softer rise.
Vegetable oil
Adds fat for moistness and a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper caramel flavor with light browning.

The step that matters

Process the tofu until fully smooth before adding the other wet ingredients. Blending the tofu first breaks it into a uniform base so the batter is smooth and evenly textured. Lumps of tofu would bake into dense pockets, and overmixing once the flour goes in can toughen the bars, so the flour is only pulsed in briefly.

Swap the walnut

The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, wheat, cinnamon, oats, tofu, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Flaxseedfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, wheat, cinnamon, oats, tofu, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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