Tuesday, 27 May 2024 

Healthier Granola Bars (GF, vegan options)

Prepare a 9x13 pan or small cookie sheet with parchment paper on the bottom, allowing some overhang on two sides. I found these silicon mini-bar pans (pictured below) at my favourite thrift store, which are perfect for granola bars.

Preheat oven to 325 F

In a large bowl, combine until well mixed:
3 cups of rolled oats or GF rolled oats (Costco sells big bags of these)
1 cup of your choice of seeds
(e.g., sunflower, pumpkin, chia, hemp hearts)
1 cup of your choice of nuts, chopped or not
(e.g., almonds, walnuts, peanuts, cashews, shredded coconut)
1 cup of your choice of dried fruit and/or other sweet item, chopped small (e.g., cranberries, raisins, other dried fruit,  chocolate or other type of sweet chips) 

Then add:
1/4 cup of coconut oil (melted) 
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (6-8 oz)
Vegan option: instead of sc milk, puree or mash well 1 1/2 cups chopped dates (softened with 1/4 cup of boiling water) with the melted coconut oil. 
Combine thoroughly with dry ingredients until mixture is moist throughout.

Firmly press the mixture into your prepared pan, taking care to densely fill all corners. Also ensure that the outer edges of the pan are filled at least as deep as the middle because they cook fastest. 

Cook in middle of the 325 oven until the edges are golden. Approximately 20-25 mins. If your oven heats really unevenly, turn the pan after 15 mins. 

Let the cooked mixture cool and firm up in the pan. Once cool, you can lift out the hardened slab by the excess parchment paper. Carve the slab into as many bars as you like. 

Enjoy!

Allison

PS - for the meet, I made two types of bars:
Peanut with peanut butter chips and
Pina Colada (dried pineapple, shredded coconut and cashews)