Posted: 06 Feb 2014 - David Lebovitz
Someone once asked me how I know
when to give up on a recipe. Sometimes I realize after a few tries, that I
should just forget about it. And others, like the tarte tropézienne in my next book, I made
seventeen times until I got it just right. (Because I got a little crazy about
getting it just right, including bringing slices around to local bakeries to
get their opinions. Plus making a second trip to the bakery in the south of
France where I had the one that inspired me to include it.) And the cake has
four components, so multiply that times seventeen, but I still didn’t give up
until I got it just right.
Speaking of my next book, I had a
kind of funny idea (well, at least to me…) to end the book with a recipe that
has been vexing
me for ages: granola bars. And I would accompany my spectacular barre de müesli recipe with a
triumphant story about how I was able to succeed in the face of multi-grain
adversity, which somehow I could turn into a metaphor for my culinary life. (In
that very special way that I do…which has editors scratching their heads as my
writing curves from one completely different subject to eventually landing on
another – which, if I/they have any luck, is on the recipe at hand.)
But after a whole other round of
testing, as my deadline loomed – and I had depleted all the flaçons d’avoine (oats) in
the natural food stores of my neighborhood – I realized that it was time to
give up my idea of including a naturally delicious dream bar, and move on with
the rest of my life.
Then, one day, I had little peanut
butter frosting leftover from a project, sitting in a bowl on the counter. And
since we were taking a trip and I wanted to bake up something to take along to
snack on, I mixed it up with some nuts, dried fruits, and whatever I had around
– then pressed the whole shebang into a pan and baked it up. And you know what?
Bingo! They were the best granola bars I’d ever had, hands down. C’est la verité.
Continue Reading No-Bake Granola Bars...
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