Hello all! It’s a late Thursday night post and I’m pooped, so I’ll keep this post short and sweet. Having been out of town over the weekend visiting my SoCal grandmother and cousins, as well as being bogged down by writing up report cards for the kiddos, recipe development has been on a brief hold.
Thankfully, I have the best mom ever, and she arrived guns blazing with a back up recipe for the blog and snacks (for my tummy). While I was away, my mom was busy roasting away some nutty granola bars that contain toasted almonds and chewy dried fruit that remind me of gummy candies. The bars end with a satisfying crunch and will only leave you reaching for more. Beware, they are oh so dangerously addictive!
- ½ cup raw almonds (chopped)
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ¼ cup unsweetened coconut flakes
- ½ cup plain rice crispies cereal
- ¼ cup dried apricots (chopped into small chunks)
- ¼ cup dried cranberries
- 4 Tbsp honey
- 3 Tbsp coconut oil (melted)
- Preheat oven 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Toast almonds and rolled oats for seven minutes on a baking pan. Remove them from the oven.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients, including the oats and almonds, together.
- Line an 8x8 pan with parchment paper so that there's parchment paper sticking up out of the sides (you'll have to cut it to make it fit the inside), but this way you'll be able to easily remove the bars by just pulling the parchment paper up.
- Fill the pan with the granola bar mixture. Press down on it with a lot of force so that the mixture is flattened and so that the ingredients adhere to one another. One way to press down on it is to place a sheet of parchment paper over the mixture and then another pan over it. You can press down on the mixture using that other pan. You can also merely use your hands.
- Bake it for 25 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Remove it from the oven and let it sit and cool for at least 1½ hours before trying to remove it from the pan. This way it becomes crispy and sticks together.
- After it's cooled, remove it from the pan and carefully cut the granola into bars of your preferred size.
Note: Doing work with the aroma of these bars roasting in the oven will leave possible drool spots on your papers.
But seriously, they smell of coconut, toasted almonds, and honey. They taste better than cookies and are filled with fiber, healthy fats, and vitamins. Trust me, this is one recipe you don’t want to miss out on.
I hope you all had a fantastic week and that you’ll get to enjoy some of these bars over the weekend. Stay happy and healthy, y’all!
Leave a Reply