oatmeal fudge bars

There is a coffee shop on the Virginia Tech campus called Bollo's, and I make sure to patronize it every time Drew and I go to Blacksburg.  I don't think Drew is as enchanted with Bollo's as I am, because I have the feeling he didn't really go there when he was a student at Virginia Tech.  

Maybe I love Bollo's because the only coffee shops within walking distance of UCI are Peet's and Starbucks, which are serviceable, but lack personality.  Maybe I love it because it reminds me of my favorite coffee shops I frequented as a student at the University of Minnesota: Espresso Expose and the Purple Onion.  Maybe I love Bollo's because I adore the oatmeal fudge bars.  They're simple, but really quite good.  And they're not a muffin or a danish, which is usually what you find at coffee shops.  And they're homemade, or if they're not, Bollo's has me fooled.

I never actively searched for an oatmeal fudge bar recipe so that I could make my own, but I stumbled upon one last spring.  I made them for a friend's dissertation defense, and they were a big hit.  The other day, I found myself thinking about them, but after spending an embarrassing amount of time searching for the recipe (which I think came from Bon Appetit or Food & Wine), I could not locate it.  

And so I had to resort to something I don't like doing, which is taking my chances and using a recipe from a random food blog.  It's not that I dislike food blogs or trying new recipes from the internet.  The problem is that since anyone can post a recipe or have a blog, I don't know which ones are good and which ones are bad.  I have my trusty food blogs and am hesitant to try recipes from other sources, but after some sleuthing, I found one to try, from the Beantown Baker.   

I made these bars for a different friend's dissertation defense, which means that these might become the "dissertation defense bars."  And fortunately, they were a big hit, just like the last time I made them.