A Day of Baking and Swimming

So call me crazy but I bake to relax. This morning I decided that I need to relax a little so I baked these...They are chocolate, cranberry oatmeal bars and the picture does not do them justice.

I ended up sending some with Brent tonight for after his bike ride, mostly because if they all stayed home I would end up eating most if not all of them. They are so moist and yummy, it is defiantly a recipe that will go in my box for another time.

Chocolate, Cranberry & Oat Bars
1 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
4 squares baking chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 350. Combine cranberries and orange juice and microwave for 1 minute. Let stand 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine flour, oats, baking powder and salt. In another bowl beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time beating until well blended. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing well after each addition. Stir in cranberries and chocolate. Spread dough in a 13x9 pan that has been sprayed.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely before cutting.

Of course I cannot just leave a recipe alone so I made a couple of changes. Instead of 1 cup of cranberries I used 3/4 cup cranberries and 3/4 cup raisins. Then since I did not have any squares of baking chocolate I used 2 cups of chocolate chips. The rest stayed the same, I also made a powdered sugar and OJ glaze for them. Yummy Yummy if I do say so myself.

This is the second thing I made...A strawberry cake. I found a strawberry cake mix at Winco and decided to give it a try. I made it in a bunt pan and put have of the mixture in and then added some strawberry jam, them topped it with the rest of the batter. It just looks like summer to me and tastes very yummy as well.

So that was my morning...baking and cleaning. Then it was off to swimming lessons where Casey did very well with the class. I am so thankful he likes it.

After the lesson we had to run to Cabela's for Brent and then made a fast stop to get a watermelon. Nothing like a juicy red watermelon on a hot day.

So all in all it was a great day. Hope you can say the same.