I promised to share my chewy granola bar recipe and here it is. I searched for a long time to find a recipe that did not have too much sugar, but still tasted great. I found it on a site called Honest Cooking. I like this recipe because it is open-ended enough to let you choose a lot of your own ingredients. I have some notes on the ingredients I prefer below the recipe.
2 cups (160 g) oats
½ cup (96 g) sugar
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. cinnamon or other spices as desired (cardamom, nutmeg, etc.)
2½ cups additions: dried fruits, seeds, nuts, flax meal, bran cereal, puffed rice cereal, crushed pretzels, chocolate chips ... the combinations are endless!
⅓ cup (60 g) peanut or other nut butter
6 Tbsp. (89 ml) olive oil - canola oil, other oils, and melted butter will work here as well
¼ cup (60 ml) honey, maple syrup, or Agave syrup
1 Tbsp. (15 ml) water
Instructions
Process ⅓ cup (27 g) of the oats in a food processor until finely ground. You want it like flour. I actually use a spice grinder for this. The resulting oat flour helps hold the bars together.
If necessary, chop up dried fruit and nuts. You don't want the pieces too fine or too big.
Whisk together wet ingredients - oil, honey, peanut butter, and water.
Mix together the wet and dry ingredients, then spread in the pan. Press firmly into the corners and edges so the top is even.
Bake for around 30 minutes, until the top starts to brown. Thicker bars will likely take longer.
Let cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes, then take them out of the pan using the parchment. Let cool completely before cutting. I like to reuse the other side of the parchment when I make another batch.
½ cup (96 g) sugar
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. cinnamon or other spices as desired (cardamom, nutmeg, etc.)
2½ cups additions: dried fruits, seeds, nuts, flax meal, bran cereal, puffed rice cereal, crushed pretzels, chocolate chips ... the combinations are endless!
⅓ cup (60 g) peanut or other nut butter
6 Tbsp. (89 ml) olive oil - canola oil, other oils, and melted butter will work here as well
¼ cup (60 ml) honey, maple syrup, or Agave syrup
1 Tbsp. (15 ml) water
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking dish with parchment paper, then lightly grease the paper with oil or butter. I use a 9 x 13 sized dish, but slightly smaller or bigger dishes work fine. It will just change the thickness of your bars
Process ⅓ cup (27 g) of the oats in a food processor until finely ground. You want it like flour. I actually use a spice grinder for this. The resulting oat flour helps hold the bars together.
If necessary, chop up dried fruit and nuts. You don't want the pieces too fine or too big.
Stir together all dry ingredients (oats, ground oats, sugar, salt, cinnamon, fruits/nuts/seeds).
Whisk together wet ingredients - oil, honey, peanut butter, and water.
Mix together the wet and dry ingredients, then spread in the pan. Press firmly into the corners and edges so the top is even.
Bake for around 30 minutes, until the top starts to brown. Thicker bars will likely take longer.
Let cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes, then take them out of the pan using the parchment. Let cool completely before cutting. I like to reuse the other side of the parchment when I make another batch.
Notes on Ingredients
I like to use raw sugar instead of white. I use peanuts, peanut oil, and agave because they are cheaper than most alternatives. But feel free to experiment. For the "2 1/2 cups additions", I use 2 cups of nuts and a 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips.
The bars stay together very well, but they do crumble a bit. If you want a very solid bar use molasses. I prefer the taste of agave, but molasses tastes good too and the bars hold up better than ones made with agave.
Enjoy!
Sounds delicious! I'm going to give it a try in the Sun Oven next week (too hot here for the real oven).
ReplyDelete--Heather in CA
Heather, I wish I had a solar cooker for really hot summer days. I might need to make one.
ReplyDelete