rosehip-almond-oat bars

[kareina]

While in the grocery store yesterday I noticed something on the shelves in the baking isle, with the other specialty flours, that I have never noticed before. "nyponmjöl" (or rosehip flour), and I decided to give it a try.

Today when I felt like baking my inspiration was the yummy oatcakes that are so good for road food that I make fairly often (combine rolled oats, butter & boiling water, roll out the "dough" and bake it in a slow oven till it is dried out), but I opted to go for a very different result. Because I was experimenting with a totally new ingredient, I opted to actually measure stuff and take notes, so that I could then change things on another occasion and see how that effects the result. Therefore I can actually present you with a recipie that has reasonably accurate numbers in it:

Rosehip-Almond-Oat Bars

2 c oats
1/2 c almond meal
1/2 c rosehip flour
1/4 c slivered almonds
2 T butter
1T honey
3/4 c boiling water
(+/-toasted) oat flour

* Melt butter

* Combine oats, almonds, and rose hips and mix butter completely through (I use my hands to break the clumps up so that the butter is evenly distributed throughout).

* Pour 1/2 cup boiling water over honey and stir to dissolve. Pour honey-water over other mixture and combine well. Pour another 1/4 c water into container that had had honey water in it, and add that to the mix and stir well to make a sticky dough.

* Roll the dough out using oat flour to keep it from sticking to the counter or rolling pin. Cut into squares bake at 150 C. (I didn't make note of the baking time, but there was time to wash all of the baking dishes, clean the counter, and run the popcorn popper before they were done, so perhaps 15 to 20 minutes?)

Even though I normally let the oat cakes cook till they are completely dried, I let these retain a bit of moisture, and am very happy with the result. They are actually slightly sweeter than I need them to be, so perhaps I will try it another time without the honey, or with a larger oat to rosehip ratio. More almonds would be a good thing, too.

Comments

[corvideye.livejournal.com]

wow, I've never heard of rosehip flour! Is it pure ground rosehip, or does it include anything else? What do people traditionally use it for?

[kareina.livejournal.com]

The label said it was made of just dried and ground rosehips. The two recipes on the package (which I didn't try) were for energy bars that involved nuts or seeds, oats, fat and sugar, the rosehip flour +/- dried fruit. So not too different from what I made, but their version looked sweeter).

The stores here also sell boxes of "nypponsoppa", or "rosehip soup", which is a mix of dried powdered rosehips and sugar (and who knows what, if anything else) that one mixes with boiling water to make a very thick liquid, which is then eaten/drunk. I have seen my sweetie enjoy it, but it was so sweet I wasn't tempted. It didn't occur to me to try that stuff in baking (though I bet it would substitute well for sugar in a sweet cake or quick bread), and now I don't have to, because I have an unsweetened variety. I suspect that there may be some health-conscious Swedes who grew up eating "nypponsoppa" who prefer to make their own from the flour version +/- their own choice of how much sugar to add.

Let me know if you find it there--I now wonder if I never noticed it when I lived elsewhere because I never looked. Certainly it has probably been on the shelves here for the whole (nearly) three years I have been here, but I didn't notice before this week.

I hope you do have it available locally--you guys could do all kinds of interesting things with it, I think.