Raspberry Goodness

Shelf Reliance, a company that focuses on food storage and emergency preparedness, asked me to use their products in one of their recipes and post my opinion. Last week, I received powdered butter, powdered eggs, flour, white sugar and freeze-dried raspberries (all part of their THRIVE line) along with a recipe for Raspberry Cake Bars. My contact told me I could make the recipe or one of my own. I chose to make their recipe because I thought it would give me a better idea of the overall company.

I was really excited to do this because, as we all know, I feel my opinion on any given subject is invaluable to others (as do all good reporters), I LOVE to be in my kitchen and writing comes like breathing to me. How much easier could this be? In this post, I'll give my review of the recipe and in another post I'll tackle their products. There's a lot to say, but nobody wants to scroll through five pages on their computer screen. (Also, I want to apologize now for the lack of formatting amongst my paragraphs. I'm having issues with Blogger right now. Serious issues.)

THRIVE Raspberry Cake Bars
Crumb topping:

1/2 c. THRIVE white flour

1/2 c. THRIVE sugar

1/4 c. THRIVE butter

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cardamom (optional)

Bars:

2 c. THRIVE sugar

3/4 c. THRIVE butter

1/2 c. buttermilk

4 Tbsp. THRIVE eggs (reconstitute with 8 Tbsp. water)

2-1/2 c. THRIVE white flour

1/4 tsp. THRIVE salt

2-1/2 c. THRIVE raspberries

Place 2 cups of raspberries in a bowl with enough hot water to cover and let stand 15 minutes, then drain off liquid and let berries dry. Preheat oven to 350. Reconstitute the butter powder for the crumb topping (1 Tbsp. butter to 1 Tbsp. water). In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and the cinnamon and cardamom. Cut in cold butter using a pastry cutter until crumbly. Set mixture aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar and butter with mixer until creamy. On low speed, beat in buttermilk and eggs until smooth. Stir in flour and salt. Spread in a greased 15x10x1 pan. Sprinkly with berries and crumb topping. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into bars. (Cut 8 rows by 6 rows for 48 bars).

First, let me just say that I really liked these bars. They were moist and delicious. I knew right away that the butter was powdered, but I don't think it really hurt the taste very much at all. It sure didn't stop me from eating them four at a time! I didn't use all the raspberries it called for because I wanted to save some to try in other recipes (to experiment with their versatility), but you still got raspberry with every bite. I thought the raspberries were especially good. They weren't wimpy on flavor and they were bright red.

Second, I like the versatility of this recipe. You can use any berry you want on top: fresh, frozen or rehydrated. You can add oatmeal to the crumb topping and even substitute some of the ingredients. For example, blueberries go better with nutmeg so I'd use that instead of cardamom. Also, buttermilk isn't something I keep on hand, and neither is cardamom. But I wanted to make it with things I had (isn't that the whole point of food storage...to use what you have?) So, I skipped the cardamom (it was optional anyway) and used Olivia's vitamin D milk instead of the buttermilk. No doubt that buttermilk would have made these bars richer, but whole milk did the job just fine. Don't skip the powdered sugar, though. They make these basic bars super special. (But I bet they'd be just as good drizzled in icing!)

Third, this recipe makes a lot of bars. When it comes to recipes using food storage, you want to get the most bang for your buck. You want to be able to get a lot of food out of just a few ingredients. This recipe totally fits the bill. I made the bars on Thursday and I still have more than half left. In fact, if you took extra care, you could probably make them part of your freezer storage, too, and have sweet little treats on hand for everybody from neighbors to visitors and anything from A+ report cards to Tuesday afternoon snacks.

My only advice to those who make this recipe: rehydrate your berries in the morning and let them dry into the afternoon or let them dry over night. Berries retain a lot of water, especially if they're dehydrated. You certaintly don't want a soggy bar. Also, take care when reconstituting the butter. I was only half paying attention and it got out of hand very quickly. In fact, I wonder if I didn't add a little too much butter to the bars. Maybe that's why I could taste it. I didn't let my butter get cold before I cut it into my crumb mixture and it worked just fine. But if you have a preference, then reconstitute it with the berries and stick it in the fridge while your berries dry.

All in all, this recipe was incredible easy and very good. There is a little more prep work involved with this one than there is with an average recipe, but that's only because you're not using average ingredients. I definitely reccommend this to anyone looking for ways to rotate through their own food storage--or even those who aren't! Who said using food storage had to be all about putting unground wheat in your chili and eating five-bean soup for a week?