I'm posting this in between licking my fingers clean of the yummy goodness. My friend Kara brought a batch of these after Squeak was born and gave me the recipe as well.
You will want to make them right away and often after that. They are so incredibly good.
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup peanut butter (I have used creamy and chunky-both work well.)
1 stick butter, softened
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups uncooked oats
3/4 cup of chips (chocolate or butterscotch or you could use raisins)
3/4 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup ground flax seed
Heat oven to 350. Beat brown sugar, butter, and peanut butter till fluffy. Add honey, molasses, and vanilla- stir well. Stir in oats, chips, coconut, raisins, and wheat germ. Press into bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. Bake fifteen minutes. Put in the freezer to chill for 45 minutes or until firm. I then cut them into bars and store them in large Ziploc in the freezer.
You're welcome.
Marty, thank you ever so much -- that sounds more than lovely. I've always loved the peanut butter-chocolate combination. Let's see if I can coax Fran into trying them. Make that let's hope so. :)
ReplyDeletethanks for the shout out- these are the best best bars in the world... and fairly healthy. i must give props to christina though as she brought them to me just after having henry... what a great new baby gift!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever been quicker to try out a recipe after reading it!! We bought the extra things we needed today and made this... WOW. They ROCK. I seriously can't some eating them. I don't think I'll ever buy a granola bar again!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
Sounds delicious! I will have to make that sometime soon! I just found a delicious granola recipe that is in the oven right now:
ReplyDelete4 cups Old Fashioned Oats
2 cups Sweetened Shredded Coconut
3/4 cups Vegetable Oil
2 cups Sliced Almonds
1/2 cup Honey
Dried Fruit of Your Liking (I use raisins)
Mix everything in a bowl, and pour the mixture into a baking dish. Bake on 350 for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally so all the granola will brown. Eat by itself or with yogurt or milk. Delicious!
I'll have to tweak the recipe a bit. An entire stick of butter and all that sugar, honey and molasses? That's just all sugar to the body. Then the peanut butter (unless it's natural style), fruit and/or chocolate contain even more sugar and (except for the fruit) adds more fat. Girl, please! (haha) I mean, it will taste good but so does chocolate pie, right?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking, replace the whole stick of butter with maybe 5/8 cup of vegetable oil, add chopped pecans, pumpkin seeds, natural style peanut butter, a little cocoa powder, some dark chocolate chips, a few raisins or cran-raisins, vanilla extract, 1/4 cup brown sugar, tablespoon or two of honey, plenty of rolled oats, a touch of brown rice flour, some millet or amaranth, keep the coconut, wheat germ and flax seeds, and a little coconut milk or coconut water so it all doesn't dry out.
I think of granola as basically a mixure of mildly sweetened whole grains, nuts and a little dried fruit. I prefer crunchy and less sweet over chewy and more sweet. But I like the fact that you shared your recipe, there's no egg needed, and the wheat germ, flax seeds and coconut are a nice touch. We can all learn from each other and experiment.
Heh. Nigel, you are so right. They do have a boatload of sugar. I know Mem uses soy butter, and I have made them with natural pb and 80% chopped choc instead of chips.
ReplyDeleteI would love to know how your tweaking turned out. And remind me never to show you my pound cake recipe. You would keel over dead :)