I basically survived on granola bars in high school. Pre-packaged, too sweet, milk chocolate granola bars at lunch and before volleyball practice. Every day. Naturally, I’ve been pretty burnt out on granola bars for the past ten years. Then my friend Sara (whom I met through the blog) texted me the ingredients list for a granola bar and requested that I recreate them. I trust Sara’s taste in granola bars and thought I’d better give these a shot, so I stopped at the nearest Kaldi’s Coffee shop to pick one up.
I made it out to my car before peeling off the packaging. One bite and I was hooked. This granola bar was unlike any other granola bar I’d ever encountered. I tasted honey, sea salt, dark chocolate, oats and cinnamon all at once—each flavor teetered on the edge of overwhelming the others yet somehow the sum was perfectly balanced. Plus, unlike those packaged, processed granola bars I’d grown up eating, these were legitimately healthy granola bars. I immediately added the ingredients listed on the back of the package to my grocery list and headed to the store.
It took me five tries to get these granola bars just right. I thought Kaldi’s granola bars were baked because the oats weren’t entirely intact, but my baked bars were all wrong. Then I tried no-bake bars with old-fashioned oats. While the flavor was pretty spot on, the texture of the oats was too distracting. Finally, it occurred to me to use quick-cooking oats—oats that have been rolled out thinner and cook in about 60 seconds—to get the right texture. Quick-cooking oats did just the trick and I delivered a bag of pre-packaged bars to Sara as a belated birthday gift.
I think you guys will appreciate these, too. The bars hold together well, although each batch I’ve made has turned out slightly different. I suspect the differences boil down to slight measuring discrepancies between the batches. For the most firm bars, you might need to sprinkle a few more oats into the bowl—enough that you think it’ll be almost impossible to mix them all in. Once you put some arm muscle into it and get those oats mixed in, you’re in business. You might also want to tinker with the amount of salt. I’ve been using unsalted Trader Joe’s almond butter, which is nice and spreadable, plus I can control the salt content. I like my bars a little salty (and therefore totally addictive), so I go with the full 3/4 teaspoon, but you might want to scale back to suit your preferences. Feel free to change up the mix-ins, too. Check the recipe notes for details!
