Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookie Bars

OATMEAL COOKIE BARS 

(Gluten-Free)

INGREDIENTS

  2 cups gluten-free flour mixture
  2 cups gluten- free rolled oats
  1 1/4 cup brown sugar
  ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  ½ teaspoon salt
  2 sticks salted butter, melted and slightly cooled (16 Tbsp)
  12 oz semisweet/milk chocolate chips
35 soft caramel candies
6 Tbsp milk


INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour. Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter, let it cool, and pour into the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir until a soft dough forms. It should be crumbly. If your dough is too wet and heavy, add a little more flour until the dough is crumbly.
2. Grease* the bottom of a 9X13 baking dish. Press ¾ of the dough into a 9x13 baking dish. Put aside the remaining ¼ for topping. Bake for about 15-17 minutes. (Gluten-Free flours don't brown like wheat flour does.) 
3. While crust is baking, unwrap caramels and melt in the microwave with the cream. Microwave at 15 second intervals and stir until the mixture is smooth and pourable. (You also can do this step in a double-boiler.)
4. Spread the entire 12 oz bag chocolate chips (minus the few you ate :-) over the baked crust. (They will start to melt if you pour them over the hot crust and that is OK.) Pour the melted caramel over the chocolate chips. Crumble the remaining dough with our hands and cover the entire top of the cookie creating a top "crust" (Do not press this crust down). 
5. Bake for another 15-20 minutes, (Remember it won't turn brown like wheat flour does.) Let it sit and completely cool. It needs to be completely cooled off to be able to cut into bars. Eat! Yummy!

*Gluten-free baked goods tend to stick to the pan. We use a homemade "cake release" recipe to grease our pans. You mix together; 1 cup gluten-free flour mixture, 1 cup shortening, 3/4 vegetable oil. Mix together and store in an airtight container. Coat the bottom the sides with this release.

 Step 1: Gather all the ingredients

(forgot the salt in this picture)

Step 2: Add the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Be sure to sift flour first.

Step 3: Pour melted butter over dry ingredients and stir together.

Step 4: Grease the bottom of the pan with "cake release."* 

Press mixture into the bottom of the pan to make crust. Bake crust.

Step 5: Cover entire crust with chocolate chips

Step 6: Melt caramels and pour over top of chocolate chips

Step 7: Cover the entire top with crumbled dough as a top crust 

(Do not press it down)

Step 8: Let it completely cool before cutting. 

ENJOY!!

Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour Mixture Recipe

It's all in the mixture!

     Successful gluten-free baking and cooking starts with the right flour mixture. Gluten-free flour is not the same as "flour." Most people think of "flour" as the all-purpose flour that you pick up at the grocery store. If a recipe calls for 1 cup of flour, you scoop usually scoop it out of the bag and then you have your flour for the recipe. Well gluten-free baking requires more than just "flour." 

     Have you heard gluten-free can be gritty or have no flavor or is plain "yucky?" That is usually because someone tried to bake with one gluten-free flour, usually just rice flour. Many companies are making gluten-free all-purpose flour and pre-mixes. These can be very expensive and have flours in it that you may not want. Some have bean flours in them, which upsets many people's stomachs. You can make your own and make it for a lot cheaper.

     To make a good tasting all-purpose gluten-free flour you need several different flours that you may not know even existed until you started your gluten-free journey. I am going to share with you the gluten-free flour mixture recipe that we successfully use to bake with everyday. When you make this mixture you can store it in an air-tight container in your cabinet. Since we used to use a lot of flour to run our bake shop, we purchased a food-grade 20-gallon storage bucket with a lid. You don't need such a big container. Something like the picture below will work fine. It doesn't need to be stored in the refrigerator.

      We use this flour mix 1:1 in any recipe we make; except for bread. 1:1 meaning if you have a well-loved regular wheat flour based recipe, you will replace this flour with the exact same amount of flour that the recipe calls for.This recipe is very simple.

Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour

    

Single recipe:

    

3- (24oz) bag Bob's Red Mill Brown Rice Flour

1- (24oz) bag Bob's Red Mill Potato Starch (NOT potato flour)

1/2-(20oz) bag Bob's Red Mill Tapioca Flour (NOT tapioca starch)

1 tbsp. xanthan gum

Double recipe:

6- (24oz) bags Bob's Red Mill Brown Rice flour

2-(24oz) bag Bob's Red Mill Potato Starch (NOT potato flour)

1-(20oz) bag Bob's Red Mill Tapioca Flour (NOT tapioca starch)

2 tbsp. Bob's Red Mill xanthan gum

  

Mix together in the container. Store in air-tight container. (We do store the extra xanthan gum in the fridge in a plastic ziploc bag.)

     We have always used Bob's Red Mill flours. I can not speak for other brands of these same flours. We know that these flours work and that no one has reactions to them, so we have always stuck with them. You can buy them at most local grocery stores these days. You can even order them online. If you plan on using this flour a lot, you can ask a local health food store to order you these flours in bulk. But for the average amount of cooking and baking, the single recipe is usually good enough. We have a family of 9, so we usually make the double recipe. 

     SOME recipes we bake, call for a little extra xanthan gum to make the baked goods not crumble. Since there is no gluten to hold things together, the xanthan gum is the binder. Some recipes need a little extra binder.