Description
No bake, 30-minute, homemade granola bars (!!). I’ve been trying different granola bar recipes for what feels like years now. Lots of off-flavors and crumbly bars (if you can call them bars). I wanted something reminiscent in flavor to Megan’s granola recipe (a salty cardamom flavor) bound together without using nut-butters (mostly for flavor reasons). I shied away from using butter and brown sugar. But after many many tries, it works consistently. And since I use both butter and sugar in my morning oatmeal, I said to myself, what’s a little more? The method of this recipe comes from Foodess, one of my favorite blogs these days. She nailed it.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. coarse salt
- 1/2 tsp. cardamom
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
- 2 c. brown rice crisps cereal
- 1/2 c. dried cranberries
- 1/2 c. pepita seeds, roasted
- 1/2 c. sliced almonds, raw
- 1/3 c. unsalted butter
- 1/3 c. brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1/3 c. brown rice syrup
- 2 (2.2 oz) Aloha Superfood Chocolate Bars
Instructions
- Into a large sauté pan, add oil, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon. Stir together and turn heat to medium-high. Once warm, add oats. Stir to coat with oil mixture and toast until lightly fragrant, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in brown rice crisps, cranberries, pepita seeds, and almonds. Set aside.
- Into a small sauce pan on medium-high heat, combine butter, brown sugar, and brown rice syrup. Stir to combine. Cook until bubbles begin forming on surface. Turn heat down to medium and cook for an additional minute.
- Add butter mixture into oat mixture. Stir to evenly combine. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, get out two 9 x 9″ square metal pans. Line one with wax or parchment paper. Chop chocolate bars into chunks.
- Once granola bar mixture has cooled, stir in chocolate reserving a couple chocolate chunks.
- Pour granola bar mixture into prepared pan. Place the additional pan on top of the granola mixture and press down to compact. Remove and press the remaining chocolate chunks into the top. Press down with the additional pan once more. Place bars in freezer for 15 minutes to cool.
- Once cooled, cut bars into fifths using a very sharp knife. Then cut in half. Store bars in a large ziploc bag at room temperature for up to a week.
Notes
Fair warning: aside from the chocolate (which is killer good), substituting ingredients will yield adverse results. The combination of butter, sugar, and syrup are integral in getting the bars to bind.
• For picture perfect bars, be sure to use a pan with squared, not rounded, edges.
