Flashback Friday: Mango Lime No Bake Cookies

                    

            

On Fridays I share one of my favorite recipes from the past.  Recipes that are so good they deserve a second look.  I originally shared this recipe for Mango Lime No Bake Cookies here. 

Why is the such a great recipe?

• It is easy, it takes 5 minutes or less
• No bake means absolutely NO cooking, baking, or heating of any kind.  
• For years I have felt cheated by the fact that most no bake cookies have to be cooked on the stove top.  But with this recipe, and a few more to come, when I say no bake I mean it.    
• It is delicious, so delicious when I take it places the adults eat this and try to get the kids to eat the chips ahoy.
• It is tropical.  I have a love most everything that has coconut, lime, or mangoes in it.  All three in one cookies is heavenly!    

Recipe Notes:

•  I think these cookies get better after chilling in the refrigerator for a while.   
•  If you can’t find unsweetened coconut it is okay to use the regular sweetened coconut you find on the baking isle of the grocery store.
•  I use a small cookie scoop to share these cookies.  The best size is for the cookies to be two bites worth—think the size of a golf ball. 

Mango Lime No Bake Cookies

Printable Recipe

1/2 cup freeze dried mangoes

1 cups shredded unsweetened coconut

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lime juice

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 tablespoons honey

In the bowl of a food processor, blend the coconut into powder.  Add dry mangoes, don't rehydrate just add them dry, and process until everything is powdered.  Add all other ingredients and process until to forms a "dough" about a minute.  Roll into balls.  Refrigerate until firm.   Yield 10 cookies

Great Harvest Fruit Bars

I love a good bakery.  Sadly there isn’t one in the little town I live in.  There are a couple of great bakeries in the next town over.  My kids know that anytime we go to the nursery to get seeds or fertilizer that we can stop and buy a treat at Great Harvest Bakery.   My kids always choose the mint chocolate chip cookies, but Great Harvest has a variety of delightful baked goods.   One of the most beautiful is the Fruit Bars.   Fruit Bars have a delicious cookie crust and are topped with fruit.   

They always look amazing. 

I have been looking for a recipe for Great Harvest Fruit Bars and I found that the actual recipe from Great Harvest is a closely guarded secret.  But they do have to publish the Nutrition facts which contain a list of ingredients. 

So what is in the magical Fruit Bars?  Brown Sugar, Fresh Ground 100% Whole Wheat Flour, Blueberries, Marionberries, Butter, Raspberries, Rolled Oats, Coconut, Eggs, Water, Baking Soda, and Baking Powder.

They also have a 450 calories each.  That is pretty intense for a fruity dessert.   I decided my fruit bars were not going to have quite so many calories.  To reduce the calories I substituted applesauce for a lot of the fat in the recipe.  To be clear even with the reduced fat these are still a “sometimes” food.

In baking it is pretty common to substitute applesauce for fat.  It is a pretty straight forward switch.  Replace half the amount of butter in your recipe with plain unsweetened applesauce; if the recipe calls for one cup of butter, use half a cup of butter and ½ cup of apple sauce.  If you don’t mind a denser moister product you can replace all the butter with applesauce. 

I’ve been doing this for years but I never loved having just a little bit of applesauce hanging around in the fridge after I used part of the container for baking.  Enter dehydrated apples sauce.   Dehydrated apples sauce is tiny bits of apples, they are approximately the size of kosher salt, and when mixed with water they rehydrate into a chunky apple sauce.   So how do I do it?

How to substitute dehydrate apple sauce 

for butter in baked goods:

For 1 cup applesauce:  1 cup dehydrated apples sauce + 1 cup hot water. 

Combine and then let sit until water is absorbed.

Use to replace ½ the butter (or if your daring all the butter) in baked goods recipes.  

Great Harvest Fruit Bars (Lower Fat)

printable recipe

½ cup butter, softened

1/2 cup Apple Sauce, plain unsweetened.  (I use ½ dehydrated applesauce rehydrated in ½ cup hot water)

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

½ cup coconut

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cups rolled oat

1 cup or more frozen fruit (cherries, raspberries, rhubarb, black berries, peaches, etc.)

 *Note if you want you can use fresh fruit or Freeze Dried Fruit.   But know that the frozen fruit releases a lot of moisture as it cooks and makes the bars very moist. Whatever fruit you use be sure to use moist plump fruit.  If using freeze dried fruit rehydrate completely and add to the bars while still quite damp.

1.     Combine butter, sugar, apple sauce, vanilla and eggs.  Mix to combine.

2.     Add remaining ingredients, mix until combined.   The dough will be thick like cookie dough.

3.     Add ¾ of dough to an  8 x 8 pan. Pressing dough dough into the pan.  Sprinkle frozen fruit on the top and the sprinkle the remaining dough on top of that.  

4.     Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Baked in the Sun Oven

Cookies are my favorite baked good.  So it is one of the first things I tried to bake in the Sun Oven.  It turned out to be a little tricky because: 

• The Sun Oven will not hold a traditional sized cookie sheet and therefore you are limited to baking 6 cookies at a time.  This can be overcome by stacking the cookie sheets or by using the dehydrating kit to stack four pans at a time.  Both options are a little tricky.
• When baking more than one pan of cookies at a time the pans need to be rotated half way through to ensure all the cookies get cooked.

To stack the cookie sheets. 

Place one cookie sheet in the bottom of the sun oven (self-leveler removed).  Rotate the next pan 90 degrees and place on top.  Rotate cookies half way through baking time, moving the bottom pan to the top.

To stack cookie sheets on the Dehydrating Kit racks.

If you have the dehydrating kit for you sun oven.  Get the racks ready.  When using the dehydrating racks you can bake 4 pans of cookies at a time.  The racks are a tight fit in the sun oven.  Be careful not to burn yourself. 

Working quickly place one cookie sheet in the sun oven, place a dehydrating rack on top of it.  Place another cookie sheet on top of the rack, repeat until full (3 dehydrating racks and 4 cookie sheets).  Close the sun oven and bake at 350 degrees.

After 6 minutes rotate cookie sheets, moving the bottom cookies sheet to the top and moving everything down one level.  Repeat every 6 minutes until all the cookies are finished baking, about 12 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies can be made in a traditional oven or in a sun oven. 

printable recipe
1 cup butter (soften)
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla
3 to 3 1/2 cups flour
2 cups chocolate chips

Kosher salt (optional)
Flax seed (optional)

Cream together butter, sugars, baking soda eggs, and flax seed.  Add vanilla and mix well.  Add flour and mix well.  Roll into balls and place on a greased cookie sheet.  Sprinkle lightly with Kosher salt.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.  Let cool.

 Makes about 36 cookies

Sun Oven Directions:

If using the dehydrating racks or if stacking pans then remove the self-leveler tray from your sun oven.

Preheat Sun Oven to 350 degrees. 

While oven is preheating, cream together butter, sugars, baking soda and eggs.  Add vanilla and mix well.  Add flour and mix well.  Roll into balls and place on a greased cookie sheet, be sure to use the size the fits in your sun oven.  I find I can get 6 cookies per sheet. 

To stack the cookie sheets.

Place one cookie sheet in the bottom of the sun oven (self-leveler removed) Rotate the next pan 90 degrees and place on top.  Rotate cookies half way through baking time, moving the bottom pan to the top.

To stack cookie sheets on the Dehydrating Kit racks.

If you have the dehydrating kit for you sun oven.  Get the racks ready.  When using the dehydrating racks you can bake 4 pans of cookies at a time.  The racks are a tight fit in the sun oven.  Be careful not to burn yourself. 

Working quickly place one cookie sheet in the sun oven, place a dehydrating rack on top of it.  Place another cookie sheet on top of the rack, repeat until full (3 dehydrating racks and 4 cookie sheets).  Close the sun oven and bake at 350 degrees.

After 6 minutes rotate cookie sheets, moving the bottom cookies sheet to the top and moving everything down one level.  Repeat every 6 minutes until all the cookies are finished baking, about 12 minutes

You might want to check out my Ultimate FREE Sun Oven PDF.