Coconut-Topped Brown Sugar Bars: An OK Day

As days go, yesterday was pretty ordinary. Nobody died, but nobody won the lottery either (nobody I know, anyway). We did ordinary things – we went to work, went to school, made lots of dishes. We bickered too much and hugged too little. It was an OK day.

And that’s appropriate, because yesterday was National OK Day. March 23, 1839 is the date the word entered the lexicon, and there are folks who still celebrate this milestone today. 

Of course, OK can mean dozens of different things. It can mean “oll korrect,” or signify approval, agreement, resignation, or simply mediocre. The fabled history of the word is much more interesting than the coconut bars we made and ate yesterday, which were also OK -- in the “meh, it’s fine. I probably won’t make them again,” sense.

This recipe, from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi cookbook, leans heavily toward candy. With the coconut and chocolate, I achieved the Mounds Bar quality I’d been searching for. But even though I combined sweetened and raw coconut to cut back on the sugar, I still felt the urge to brush my teeth within seconds of wiping the crumbs from my face. Also, the brown sugar base was too crunchy and sweet, even though I under baked it, as other bloggers had suggested.

I’m happy to see that other TWD BCM bloggers (“Doristas” as we’re now calling ourselves) enjoyed the bars more than I did. Clearly these bloggers didn’t have a problem using the caramelized Rice Krispies topping that originally was called for in this recipe.

Let’s face it, I’m just a cereal snob. I’m OK with that.