Saturday, December 18, 2010

Holiday Fruit Bars - Dec. 2010

Growing up my mom made her holiday fruit bars every year - batches for our teachers, for the exterminator, for parties, and of course a stash to have around the house. For me, I knew Christmas was coming when the fruit bars were being made. A few years ago we hosted Christmas at my house, and I made the fruit bars - my husband's mother and grandfather both clamored for a copy of the recipe before they left.

Since then I have not gone back to the recipe, but this year I decided that with all my experiments in vegan baking I was learning a lot, but not really experimenting. So I pulled out the recipe, and looked at what substitutions I would have to make to veganize it - my first attempt at veganizing a recipe on my own. Exciting new territory.

Looking at the recipe for the first time in a few years, I was pleased to see that I would only have to make two substitutions from the original. Vegan margarine in place of the butter, and then something to replace the two eggs. Thinking back to what I've baked over the year, what I had on hand, and what I thought would fit the original recipe, I decided to try two variations, one with Ener-G Egg Replacer, and the other with flax-seeds to replace the egg.

For the trial I used two identical, recyclable 8" square aluminum pans, using Pam cooking spray to grease them. I chopped all the cherries and dates for both batches (luckily I had bought pre-chopped walnuts), then made my two egg replacers, mixing each with warm water. I then measured out the other ingredients into two bowls, and added the egg replacers, and mixed the batter, adding the yummy chopped bits from earlier last, per the recipe.

2 sets of ingredients, ready for mixing


Flax-seed batter on the left, Ener-G egg replacer on the right
I poured the batter immediately into the two pans, and put the pans side by side in the preheated oven, each pan on a cookie sheet to provide extra support. The recipe said to let the fruit bars cook for 45 minutes at 350. I set the timer for 35 minutes and cleaned up. Neither batch looked "done" at 35 minutes, so I came back at 40. The flax-seed batter had firmed up, but the batch that had the egg-replacer was still bubbly, so I left it in for the other 5 minutes.

Finished Flax-Seed batterFinished Ener-G Egg Replacer batter
I let both batches cool, and then cut them into smaller piece than was ever allowed in my house, rolling each in sugar. A few cherries and nuts were lost in the process, but both sets of bars seemed to hold together pretty well. All that was left was the taste test.

Sugar added- Flax seed left; Ener-G right


Luckily I have eager friends and co-workers. Members from my writing group preferred the flax-seed to egg-replacer 2-1. One girl who liked the flax-seed one better said she liked them because they were more moist, and complained that the one made with egg-replacer tasted like "flour and brown sugar".

At work, 2 could discern no difference, and 2 loved the flax seed option. One last opinion from family weighed in on the side of the egg-replacer version, though she admitted to wanting the flax-seed one to be better (she was the only one who went into the tasting "blind", not knowing which sample was which), and was surprised when she picked the egg-replacer one.

I also liked the flax-seed variation better, also because it was more moist – but I know that part of this could be the extra 5 minutes that the egg-replacer batter stayed in the oven.

Yummy - Flax seed mixAlso yummy, but fewer votes, Ener-G

Overall, the votes went 5-2-2 – Flax, Egg-replacer, no-difference.

I made the recipe again, a few days later, to give to another set of co-workers. I had exhausted my supply of recyclable pans, so I used my regular square pan, a 9" glass one. I use margerine to grease the dish. That night I saw firsthand the difference that different pan materials can cause.

These flax-seed variety fruit bars had a lot less sticking power. When they were cool and sliced, I began to remove the first bar to roll in sugar, it almost fell apart in my hand, and overall this batch lost a lot more of the confetti of goodies that make these treats what the are. I took to pressing each bar together before gently rolling them in sugar (well, more gently than the previous two batches). The held together okay, but rather than being moist, the bars seemed to skirt the edge of gooey.

This was definitely a learning experience, and I look forward to trying these again in a few days, make a veganized batch of these holiday classics for my mom, to see what she thinks.


Vegan Holiday Fruit Bars
2 TBSP ground flax seeds
6 TBSP warm water
1 cup sugar
2/3 cups all purpose white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup nonhydrogenated margarine
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup candied cherries, halved
1 cup chopped, pitted dates
1 cup chopped nuts
granulated sugar


1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Grease 9" square metal pan.
3. In a small bowl mix flax seeds and water until well blended. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.
5. Fold in margarine, vanilla and the flax-seed mixture. Blend well.
6. Add nuts, cherries and dates, mix until covered by batter.
7. Pour into a well-greased 9" square pan and bake at 350 degrees for 42-45 minutes.
8. Remove from oven, and place on a wire rack and let cool completely.
9.Once cool, cut into 16 squares. Roll each square in granulated sugar.


New tools/ ingredients:  Candied Cherries, Dates,
Recipe used: My own variation of my mom's Holiday Fruit Bar recipe
Co-baker: solo-mission
Date: Dec. 6-15, 2010

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