This post contains affiliate links.
Mix And Match Ingredients For Your Favorite Granola Bar
This One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars is a hit for creating a bar with all your loved chewy morsels. Just fallow the basic recipe and add your desired nut butter then a half cup of your favorite chips like chocolate chip, dried fruit, nuts or seeds. Every time you make this recipe you can make a different batch. This leaves you with a vast array of choices to experiment with. I have made two varieties here today, one with almond butter and pumpkin and sesame seeds the other with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Both are so delicious with all natural and organic ingredients, well worth making a second time.
A Little Granola Bar History
Let’s go back to 1863… believe it or not to a prominent health spa in Dansville, New York City called the Jackson Sanitarium. This is where Dr. James Caleb Jackson created ‘granula’ by using smashed graham flour and baking it. Of course later we added oats, sugar, nuts and dried fruit and called it granola.
After Jackson came Dr.John Harvey Kellogg’s granula, the famous Kellogg’s cereal maker. His recipe was comprised of oatmeal, cornmeal and wheat flour. Hence, after Jackson sued Kellogg he changed the name to granola and by 1899 Kellogg was selling four tons of granola a month. Obviously, it was worth being sued over.
Granola took a back seat until the late 1960’s when Layton Gentry created a new recipe. He sold the rights to his creation. By 1972 this recipe became the first mass marketed granola by Heartland Natural Cereal.
This granola became the portable bar shaped snack in the 1970’s. A serious revolution that kick started the serial inventor Stanley Mason. Mason called himself “an inventor of ordinary, everyday products—not high-tech, but common, useful things.” With over 100 inventions and a whomping 55 patents Mason was unstoppable and companies were seeking him out. Clearly, with his fast practical genius mind he was the inventor of the granola bar.
Today there are so many varieties of granola bars. One could stand in the grocery isles and be there twenty minutes just trying to decide what granola bar to buy. There’s such an array of tasty morsels to put into these conveniently packed bars. So, today I give you a wonderful wholesome base granola bar recipe to make. Add to it what you desire. The creativity is all yours. I hope you like my recipe. Enjoy!
How To Pick The Right Nut Butter For Granola Bars
You may think that all nut butters are the same but they are not. Most commercialized brands are thick and full of additives and preservatives. We don’t want these thick brands.
Nut butters are best when you can get them freshly ground. I know that is not always easy to find. Especially if you are wanting something like a hazelnut or Brazil nut butter. You can grind them yourself in a high speed mixer like a Bullet or Ninja brand smoothie blender. You can add a little peanut oil, canola oil, grapeseed oil or avocado oil to make it runnier because this is what you are going to need for the recipe.
Look for an organic brand of nut butter that has the natural oils separated at the top. This will be perfect! This recipe calls for runny nut butter. You will have to put some effort into mixing the oil into the nut butter but it will be worth it. This kind of nut butter taste so good.
How To Make One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars
This recipe for One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars is a must have. It is very easy to make. You will be making them all the time.
First preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line an 8 X 8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper. I just cut out a piece of parchment for the size of the bottom of the pan.
In a large bowl add all of the dry ingredients, dry fruits, nuts or chocolate chips and mix it together well with a large wooden spoon. In a small bowl mix the maple syrup and nut butter of choice. Do not mix yet because the nut butter needs to be warmed. This is where you add 5 tablespoons of hot water to the nut butter and syrup mixture. Whisk it all together until it is well blended with no nut butter lumps.
Add the liquid mixture to the dry blended ingredients. Stir it all together with a wooden spoon until well blended. Pour it all into the 8 X 8 inch baking pan and spread evenly. Make sure to get it into the corners and press down enough to pack it down into the pan.
Add to the top of the pan any dried fruit, nuts, seeds or chocolate chip toppings that you would like. Make sure to press them down into the batter a little to set them. Bake for 30 minutes and until golden brown.
How To Cut Granola Bars
People seem to think there is a trick to cutting up granola bars and actually there is.
First, after the granola bars come out of the oven they need to sit for at least 2 hour. They have to be completely cooled because you don’t want condensation on the granola bars. They will be too gooey to cut.
Second, they have to go into the refrigerator for additional cooling. Do not skip the cooling part. If you cut them while they are still warm they will break and crumble.
Third, With a very sharp knife ( I use Ninja Knives for this part) cut the baked granola bars into the shape you desire them to be. They can be cut into whatever size and the amount you want.
If you want these granola bars for your busy work week or for school then wrap them each individually. This is very convenient because you can nab them on your way out the door.
What To Fill Your Granola Bars With
In this recipe for One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars you will need 1/2 cup of a filling of choice. It can be any type of nut, such as peanuts, walnuts, cashews, brazil nuts, pistachios, almonds or macadamia nuts. Seeds are a delicious protein rich addition as well such as sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or flaxseed. Let’s not for get dried fruits like, figs, dates, apricots, apples, raisins, cranberries, pineapple, raspberries, cherries, mango, blueberries and I’m sure I’m forgetting some.
If you are really having a sweet tooth you would like to adventure into chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips or butterscotch chips. These are hard to always find as being organic but they are out there. Mix and match all of these ingredients to come up with your favorite or maybe you already have one.
I hope you like this One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars as much as we do. Enjoy!
More Recipes You May Like:
Rich Dark Chocolate Salted Olive Oil Cookies
Chocolate Cinnamon Spice Protein Bars
Vegan Cinnamon Crumb Top Muffins
Print
One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 9 to 16 1x
- Category: Breakfast/Snack
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars is a must have to create any type of granola bar. Of course it has an oatmeal grain base but you can add any one of your favorite dried fruits, nuts, seeds or flavored chips. These vegan granola bars have a maple syrup sweetener or you can use brown rice syrup or agave syrup. The 1/2 cup ingredient add ins are all so flexible. Cut these bars in any shape you desire and wrap them up individually to eat on the run. Great for breakfast, school lunch, work or snacks.
Ingredients
One Versatile Recipe For Great Granola Bars
- 1 1/2 cups Organic Quick Cooking Steel Cut Oats (for chewy bars)or Quick Cooking Oats
- 3/4 cup Organic Almond Flour
- 1/3 cup Organic Fine Oat Flour
- 5 1/2 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed Meal
- 1 Tbsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Sea Salt
- 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Pure Maple Syrup or Agave Syrup
- 1/2 cup Creamy Unsalted Runny Nut Butter ( no additives. It needs to be runny so the nut oil will keep the bars moist)
- 5 Tbsp Hot Water
- 1/2 cup of any chopped dried fruit, chopped nuts, chopped seeds or chopped flavored chips like chocolate chips. Add just one or a variety of your choice to add up to 1/2 of a cup.
Instructions
One Versatile Recipes For Great Granola Bars
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Line a 8 X 8 square baking pan with parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl add oats, almond meal, flaxseed meal, fine oat flour, cinnamon and sea salt. Stir together well with a large whisk until well blended and there are no lumps.
- In a medium size mixing bowl add the maple syrup and nut butter and hot water. Mix all together with a whisk until the mixture is smooth.
- Pour the wet mixture over the dry mixture and add the half cup of your choice of granola nuts, seeds, dried fruit or chips. Stir together with a large wooden spoon until it is moist and sticky.
- Spoon the mixture onto the parchment lined 8 X 8 baking pan. Use the back of a scraper to press the mixture into the pan. Make sure it is EVEN and pressed down well and smooth. You can wet the scraper to get it smooth without sticking. Wet your fingers to get it down even along the edges.
- Add additional nuts, dried fruit, seeds or chips to the top of the batter. Press them down into the batter mixture.
- Put in the oven and bake 30 minutes until light brown.
- When done let cool for 1 to 2 hours. Then place the baking pan in the refrigerator to finish cooling it down for 30 minutes. Once they are cool they are ready to cut without crumbling.
- Use a very sharp knife to cut the bars with. ( I use very large Ninja Knives)
- Cut them into whatever shape you want and as many as you want.
- Wrap each one individually to keep moist and perfect to eat on the run.
- Enjoy!
Notes
You can use agave sweetener or brown rice syrup instead of maple syrup for this recipe.
If you find these bars are too chewy with using quick cooking steel cut oats then use regular quick cooking oats. Steel cut is better for you so I choose them for this recipe.
Use unsalted nut butter if you can but if you do use salted nut butter cut the amount of sea salt in half.
You must use runny nut butter.
