If you follow me for long you are going to soon learn that I am a strong believer in using what I have on hand. I have a large pantry due to many learning experiences in my life, but my pantry does not contain every ingredient in existence. Nor is it bottomless. Occasionally I forget to restock.
One of the things that I'm winging it on, out of the pantry, is granola bars. I took a hard look at how much we were spending on itsy, bitsy, tiny, tiny, store bought granola bars and decided to take things in hand and try making our own. Step one, hunt for recipes. Okay, step one made my brain hurt. I had no idea there were so many ways to make granola bars. Except the recipes aren't for granola bars, they are for granola. My son doesn't do granola, only granola bars.
I'll put my version of the recipe below the story. Feel free to wing it yourself and share the results. First, 3 cups of nuts. Yup, not oats yet. I keep forgetting to put them on the grocery order. I did not have the nuts she listed, but I did have containers of Sam's Club Deluxe Nut Mix, both salted and unsalted. We can't have peanuts so I get him the deluxe mix. The reason why I have them on hand is a whole story in and of itself. Back to cooking, I did half and half. One and a half cups of salted mix, one and a half cups of unsalted mix. For chocolate granola bars, I shorted each of those by a quarter cup and add a half cup of Enjoy Life Mega Chunks. (Dairy Free, Gluten Free https://amzn.to/2ZkZcLU)
Whew, step one down. Now step two. Except I don't have flaked coconut. I have fine ground unsweetened. Well, in it goes.
Next is chia seeds. Yeah, I didn't have those either. I could have gone two ways. I have a variety of cereals that are used for different things. (Those little pellet style that you use for breading and stuff.) And I have sunflower seeds. And it was sunflower seeds for the win.
The rest of the recipe I had on hand in the pantry, even if the honey was pretty crystallized. And then I added one extra ingredients specifically to help my son, protein powder. Orgain has a vanilla protein powder that is safe for him. (https://amzn.to/2ZlVstK)
Batch one I did in a 9x9 pan. I was looking for thicker bars. That worked, except for two problems. One, none of my knives are sharp enough to cut granola bars, another long story. And two, differing ovens. When I did the second bake it turned out to be too long in my oven.
So there was a fix for both issues. For granola bars, I went hunting online for granola bar molds, and ones that would make a bar that is roughly 1 inch thick. I finally found what I was looking for and ordered it. There are molds for smaller bars as well. (https://amzn.to/32caAfc) (Yes, I know. I need to learn how to sharpen my knives. That's a whole different story.)
So time for the second batch. I pretty much used the same recipe except I accidentally added extra honey, and for the chocolate ones, I added a bit of black strap molasses. Batch two came out decent except that they were sticky and super moist on the bottom. Super moist on the bottom was actually easily fixed. When I wrapped them in parchment paper for storage, I flipped the moist side to the top. Sure enough gravity took it from there and when he went to eat them they were moist all the way through.
As for the baking time, I watched careful for the last 15 minutes. Maybe it was the excess sweetener that ended up in them, but it wasn't a problem for batch two. The molds worked great and he was much more comfortable with something that looked more like "his" granola bars.
So batch three was yesterday. Raw, the flavor was great. A bit much coconut for my preference but my son has no problem with it at all. And I added one more extra ingredient as an experiment, matcha green tea powder. I'll have to let you know how that goes. But I can tell you, they turned out much more like normal granola bars, if a bit thicker. And the passed the taste test with my son this morning. (Oh, and for the second bake, I just shut the oven off at 45 minutes and just left the pans in the oven for the last 15 minutes.)
But if you want to join me in winging it from your pantry, here's the "recipe": (I have no idea on the calories, nutrition or otherwise.)
Vanilla Granola Bars Chocolate Granola Bars
1 1/2 c. Salted Peanut Free Nut Mix 1 1/4 c. Salted Peanut Free Nut Mix
1 1/2 c. Unsalted Peanut Free Nut Mix 1 1/4 c. Unsalted Peanut Free Nut Mix
1/2 c. Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Mega Chunks
1/2 c. shredded coconut 1/2 c. shredded coconut
1/4 c. sunflower seeds 1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/4 c. coconut oil (solid) 1/4 c. scant, coconut oil (solid)
1/4 c. honey 1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. maple syrup 1/4 c. maple syrup
1 tbsp. vanilla 1/2 tbsp. vanilla
1/2 scoop Orgain Protein Powder 1/2 scoop Orgain Protein Powder
4 tsp. matcha green tea powder 4 tsp matcha green tea powder
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2) Throw all the ingredients in the food processor. I like to do half the nuts, then the oil, sweeteners, and powders. Then the other half of the nuts.
3) Pulse to preferred consistency. I got for most of the nuts chopped into easily chewable pieces with a bit around the edges that is almost nut butter consistency.
4) Pull out a cookie tray and put it under your molds. Fill the molds. And this is fun. I do the larger chunky stuff in each mold first. Then I got back with the more nut butter stuff and fill in all the holes and make sure the mold is full. I typically get 8 or 9 bars from each batch.
5) Slide them into the oven, on 200 degrees, for two hours.
6) Pull them and completely let them cool. Really. Completely cool.
7) Put them back into the oven on 250 degrees for one hour. This really is required to get them to keep the bar form. But given the variances on ovens, watch for the last 15 minutes so you don't burn them. (My final method is just to turn the oven off for that last 15 minutes while leaving the bars in it.)
8) Let them cool. Wrap them in parchment paper. Enjoy.
And because I still have yet to figure out how to add that associate disclaimer thing to the sidebar. I signed up for Amazon Associate, so if you click those links I might get a referral fee. But I won't put up links for items that I do not use and find useful in our lives.
One of the things that I'm winging it on, out of the pantry, is granola bars. I took a hard look at how much we were spending on itsy, bitsy, tiny, tiny, store bought granola bars and decided to take things in hand and try making our own. Step one, hunt for recipes. Okay, step one made my brain hurt. I had no idea there were so many ways to make granola bars. Except the recipes aren't for granola bars, they are for granola. My son doesn't do granola, only granola bars.
During the hunt for recipes a friend shared her two tried and true (TNT) recipes. When she gets those recipes up on her blog, I'll share them. Until then, here's the link to her blog, please go say hi. www.fiveoaksfarmal.com/blog But the biggest tip she gave me was to do it in two bake sessions, one lower and longer than the other. But I didn't have a lot of her ingredients on hand, so here's where the winging it came in.
I'll put my version of the recipe below the story. Feel free to wing it yourself and share the results. First, 3 cups of nuts. Yup, not oats yet. I keep forgetting to put them on the grocery order. I did not have the nuts she listed, but I did have containers of Sam's Club Deluxe Nut Mix, both salted and unsalted. We can't have peanuts so I get him the deluxe mix. The reason why I have them on hand is a whole story in and of itself. Back to cooking, I did half and half. One and a half cups of salted mix, one and a half cups of unsalted mix. For chocolate granola bars, I shorted each of those by a quarter cup and add a half cup of Enjoy Life Mega Chunks. (Dairy Free, Gluten Free https://amzn.to/2ZkZcLU)
Whew, step one down. Now step two. Except I don't have flaked coconut. I have fine ground unsweetened. Well, in it goes.
Next is chia seeds. Yeah, I didn't have those either. I could have gone two ways. I have a variety of cereals that are used for different things. (Those little pellet style that you use for breading and stuff.) And I have sunflower seeds. And it was sunflower seeds for the win.
The rest of the recipe I had on hand in the pantry, even if the honey was pretty crystallized. And then I added one extra ingredients specifically to help my son, protein powder. Orgain has a vanilla protein powder that is safe for him. (https://amzn.to/2ZlVstK)
Batch one I did in a 9x9 pan. I was looking for thicker bars. That worked, except for two problems. One, none of my knives are sharp enough to cut granola bars, another long story. And two, differing ovens. When I did the second bake it turned out to be too long in my oven.
So there was a fix for both issues. For granola bars, I went hunting online for granola bar molds, and ones that would make a bar that is roughly 1 inch thick. I finally found what I was looking for and ordered it. There are molds for smaller bars as well. (https://amzn.to/32caAfc) (Yes, I know. I need to learn how to sharpen my knives. That's a whole different story.)
So time for the second batch. I pretty much used the same recipe except I accidentally added extra honey, and for the chocolate ones, I added a bit of black strap molasses. Batch two came out decent except that they were sticky and super moist on the bottom. Super moist on the bottom was actually easily fixed. When I wrapped them in parchment paper for storage, I flipped the moist side to the top. Sure enough gravity took it from there and when he went to eat them they were moist all the way through.
As for the baking time, I watched careful for the last 15 minutes. Maybe it was the excess sweetener that ended up in them, but it wasn't a problem for batch two. The molds worked great and he was much more comfortable with something that looked more like "his" granola bars.
So batch three was yesterday. Raw, the flavor was great. A bit much coconut for my preference but my son has no problem with it at all. And I added one more extra ingredient as an experiment, matcha green tea powder. I'll have to let you know how that goes. But I can tell you, they turned out much more like normal granola bars, if a bit thicker. And the passed the taste test with my son this morning. (Oh, and for the second bake, I just shut the oven off at 45 minutes and just left the pans in the oven for the last 15 minutes.)
But if you want to join me in winging it from your pantry, here's the "recipe": (I have no idea on the calories, nutrition or otherwise.)
Vanilla Granola Bars Chocolate Granola Bars
1 1/2 c. Salted Peanut Free Nut Mix 1 1/4 c. Salted Peanut Free Nut Mix
1 1/2 c. Unsalted Peanut Free Nut Mix 1 1/4 c. Unsalted Peanut Free Nut Mix
1/2 c. Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Mega Chunks
1/2 c. shredded coconut 1/2 c. shredded coconut
1/4 c. sunflower seeds 1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/4 c. coconut oil (solid) 1/4 c. scant, coconut oil (solid)
1/4 c. honey 1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. maple syrup 1/4 c. maple syrup
1 tbsp. vanilla 1/2 tbsp. vanilla
1/2 scoop Orgain Protein Powder 1/2 scoop Orgain Protein Powder
4 tsp. matcha green tea powder 4 tsp matcha green tea powder
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2) Throw all the ingredients in the food processor. I like to do half the nuts, then the oil, sweeteners, and powders. Then the other half of the nuts.
3) Pulse to preferred consistency. I got for most of the nuts chopped into easily chewable pieces with a bit around the edges that is almost nut butter consistency.
4) Pull out a cookie tray and put it under your molds. Fill the molds. And this is fun. I do the larger chunky stuff in each mold first. Then I got back with the more nut butter stuff and fill in all the holes and make sure the mold is full. I typically get 8 or 9 bars from each batch.
5) Slide them into the oven, on 200 degrees, for two hours.
6) Pull them and completely let them cool. Really. Completely cool.
7) Put them back into the oven on 250 degrees for one hour. This really is required to get them to keep the bar form. But given the variances on ovens, watch for the last 15 minutes so you don't burn them. (My final method is just to turn the oven off for that last 15 minutes while leaving the bars in it.)
8) Let them cool. Wrap them in parchment paper. Enjoy.
And because I still have yet to figure out how to add that associate disclaimer thing to the sidebar. I signed up for Amazon Associate, so if you click those links I might get a referral fee. But I won't put up links for items that I do not use and find useful in our lives.
Perhaps a S'mores version with marshmallow and dark chocolate?
ReplyDeleteThat is on the list for future experimentation. But I have to do his marshmallows from scratch. So probably a few months out. Maybe as a special treat in the fall.
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