I am not going to tell you how many of these bars I can eat in one sitting. You simply wouldn't believe. But that just proves how good they are. When I made them first, I said to myself that I will never eat store bought bars again. Homemade are so much better! However, after I ate half of the batch at once, I changed my mind. It's just too dangerous. I know, I know. But I just CAN'T eat only one... Really, I wish I could.
As you already know, I am a huge fan of oats, dried fruits (especially cranberries and apples), peanut butter and brown sugar. So it's not surprising that I loved them so much. Feel free to add your favorite dried fruits instead of apples, pears, apricots and cranberries. You can also replace peanut butter with cashew or almond butter. Improvise!
Granola Bars:
100g dried cranberries
160g dried fruits (apples, apricots, pears)
½ cup toasted chopped peanuts
1 ½ cup quick cooking oats
1 cup rolled oats
5 tbsp brown sugar
6 tbsp water
3 tbsp honey
4 tbsp homemade peanut butter (+ 1tsp honey)
1) Chop the dried fruits into small chunks and mix together.
2) In another bowl, mix together the oats and chopped peanuts. Add in
the dried fruits.
3) In a food processor, grind the peanuts until they start to liquefy.
Add 1 tsp of honey and mix for for some more minutes until the consistency
resembles peanut butter.
4) In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, combine together brown
sugar, water and honey. Stir until sugar is completely dissolved and small
bubbles start appearing in the edges of saucepan. Reduce heat to low and add
peanut butter. Mix until combined. Turn off the heat and let cool a little bit.
5) Pour the syrup over the oat mixture and mix very well. Lay a piece of
parchment paper over a bottom of a 20x20cm square pan. Pour the mixture into
prepared pan and press it to the bottom with your fingers.
6) Let stand for couple hours and then cut into bars.
Thank you! I will definitely add my blog to Petitchef!
ReplyDeleteSome weeks ago I made my first homemade bars, mine where very different, chocolate and dates ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd it's amazing how easy is to make this, only a food processor (in the case of the ones I did), and it's better than shop bought, since you can choose the ingredients and flavours!! It's incredible!!
I like your combination, and the idea of using peanut butter!! The recipe is a little different, but they're also more sofisticated, I think, so I hope I give them a try!!
I am planning to make bars from dates also! I've seen many recipes and they're quite popular.
DeleteI always loved such bars but now I like them even more when I can make them myself and choose my favourite flavours. And the best part of it is that they're healthy! It's sometimes better to eat a granola bar than a slice of cake :D
I liked peanut butter here very much. And it's so easy to make it homemade, I think it's much more delicious than the store-bought one!