Recipe: Granola Bars That Don’t Crumble February 27
I hate buying granola bars from the grocery store. My list of complaints is long and gets very whiney sounding by the end but they are too expensive, too few to a box, too small and too sweet, to name a few. Years ago I saw a recipe for homemade granola bars which caused a minor revelation in my little world. Woah. I could make my own…
I proceeded to do just that and ended up with batch after batch of granola (minus the whole Bar part). The concoctions were certainly tasty (who can complain about a combination of honey, peanut butter, sesame seeds and raisins?) but at their best, they only retained a semblance of bar-like shape when handled like that bright blue half of a robin’s egg you find laying in your yard in the spring - Very Carefully. If touched when the wind was blowing the wrong direction it disintegrated in your palm.
This year I set out to finally come up with a granola bar that WORKS. Armed with 5 pounds of honey, 50 pounds of oats and an armful of recipes that I cut and pasted together such that the end product in no way resembles its parts, this is what I ended up with:
Granola Bars That Work
makes 1 9×13″ pan, or about 18 bars
Ingredients:
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup grated coconut
1/4 cup wheat germ or oat bran or rice bran or okara
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey or barley malt (for slightly less sweet bars)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1 cup extras (raisins, flax seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, nuts, puffed rice, etc.)
Preheat oven to 325.
Combine oats, coconut, wheat germ and any nuts or seeds you wish to toast for the bars in a 9×13″ pan. Toast for 25 minutes. Remove pan and turn oven up to 350.
While the oats toast, combine butter, sugar & honey in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the butter is melted and sugar dissolved. Add the peanut butter at this time and stir in thoroughly.
Dump the toasted oat mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add any additional extras. Drizzle the syrup over oats and stir until they are all evenly coated. Return everything to the 9×13″ cake pan and press mixture in to form an even, solid mass.
Bake at 350 for 12 minutes (4-6 minutes longer if you like crisper bars). Remove pan to cooling rack and let cool completely before cutting. Bars will keep for well over a week in a plastic storage container, or freeze for later use.