Fruity Oaty Bars Make A Man Out Of A Mouse

Around the time that we were planning our Dollhouse party, our friend April, who lives in LA but visits Boston every year around her birthday, said that she wanted a Whedon-verse themed party for her birthday. We spent the intervening months brainstorming party ideas based not just on Dollhouse, but also Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and my beloved Firefly.


I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to make Fruity Oaty Bars, which has a commercial (above) that unlocks seemingly-crazy River's potential in Serenity. I brainstormed ideas for ages - I didn't want to just dye something with colors to make it match the commercial. I ended up combining a few recipes to include both fruit and oats, as well as to keep the colorful look.

The resulting Fruity Oaty Bars are pretty tasty and would make a great breakfast snack. The texture is similar to a muffin, and it's not terribly sweet. The blueberry and strawberry sections had the strongest taste, while the mango and kiwi sections just tasted vaguely fruity. I would make this again (probably with just a single fruit) just to have on hand for breakfast.

Of course, I had to wrap them individually to make them look like something shiny you would buy in the Core planets. I wanted to wrap them in gold foil, which I thought I had on hand but didn't. I opted, instead, for a copy of the local Chinese newspaper, which I grabbed from a newspaper box on my corner, and added a picture of the Fruity Oaty Bar Girls that I grabbed off the internet.

Fruity Oaty Bars
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups old-fashioned oats
6 Tbsp butter, melted
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/3 cups fruit puree (your choice - I used 1/3 cup strawberry, 1/3 cup blueberry, 1/3 cup kiwi, and 1/3 cup mango)
food coloring (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a glass baking dish with parchment paper, letting the edges overhang so you can remove the baked bars easily. I used a 7x12 baking dish, which seems like an odd size, so use something that is relatively long and narrow.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and oats and mix well. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, eggs, vanilla, and sugar and mix well. Place each fruit puree in a different mixing bowl and divide butter/eggs/sugar mixture evenly between them; mix well (and add food coloring if you want the colors to be bold after baking). Divide flour/oat mixture evenly amongst the bowls and mix until all the dry ingredients are moistened.

Arrange the colored batters in long, thin stripes down the baking dish. The batter will be thick, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get the colors to line up next to each other. Make for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool completely before cutting.

To serve, cut into slices, making sure to include some of each fruit.

Of course, there was more to the Whedon-verse party than Fruity Oaty Bars. Everyone came in costume - we had Inara, Kaylee, Simon, River, Jayne, Drusilla, Faith trapped in Buffy's body, Faith, and the Man himself, Joss Whedon. We enjoyed Some Kind of Hot Cheese, burgers from Double Meat Palace, and Simon's birthday cake (in miniature, above). We also had tons of themed drinks: Kaylee's Gussied-Up Engine Wine Coolers (strawberry juice, vodka, and riesling), Lorne's Seabreezes (grapefruit juice, vodka, cranberry juice, wedge of lime), Mudder's Milk (depending on who was drinking, it was either beer or Baileys), Wonderflonium (bright greet kiwi strawberry fruit punch and gin, although any bright green juice would work), and my favorite, Badger's Finest (iced tea, applejack, and slices of green apple).

What would you include for a Joss-themed party?