Tummy Time: Granola Bars with Almonds and Dates
For an easy and healthy snack, this is the bar for you!
I like it because I am able to sneak some sprouted almonds into my kiddos diets. (They don’t like to eat nuts . . . unless the word butter follows the name of the nut.)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter or coconut oil
- 1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup — that is if you don’t have a hive in your backyard)
- 4 cups uncooked oats
- 1 cup chopped almonds
- 1 cup chopped dates
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3 eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9×13 pan with coconut oil or butter. (When I want to do this quickly – I use olive oil – but it kind of reminds me of the smell of a boat dock when I do this. Don’t ask me why. )
Use a pitch fork or whisk and blend the melted butter and honey together. I accomplished this task by heating the two ingredients ever so gently on the stove like so . . . .
Pretend you are playing basketball and dribble the liquid mixture into an already tossed oats, almonds, dates and cinnamon.
Let me tell you about a little secret tool I have in my kitchen. It’s called a ula knife. The wood board with concave impression combined with a curved and VERY sharp blade makes chopping herbs, veggies, nuts, and dried fruit super duper easy . . . and fast. I often prefer my ula knife over a food processor. (Less to clean up . . . if I have to be honest.)
With some self-control, slightly beat the eggs and then stir them into the oaty (I made that word up) mixture.
Press wet granola into your greased pan. I found the easiest way to accomplish this uniformly, without using a sledge hammer, was to use the bottom of a measuring cup.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
If you don’t want to burn your taste buds, then allow the bars to cool. Cut into bars – any size you like!
Trying the recipe now (it’s baking as I type and smells amazing). I really like nuts so I tweaked things a bit. Organic honey and coconut oil were the same, but I only used 2 cups of steel cut oats and supplemented the lack with 1 extra cup of thick cut almonds and 1cup chopped walnuts. 1 cup chopped dates same as above, seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg. I also added some sunflower seeds and ground flax seeds… now that it’s cooking I realize I used only 2 eggs instead of three >_< drat. Hopefully it's still okay. I also only had a pizza pan… if it crumbles I guess I'll just have super tasty granola.
But I have a question. With the egg element, are these safe to leave at room temperature? How long till they go bad? They'll probably disappear quickly, but it would be good to know. 🙂
Hope your bars turned out yummy! Loved all the changes you made. Sounds like me when I get a hold of a recipe. Because you are baking them, I think you can leave them out. But then again, they don’t last long around here. Now after a day, I probably would stick them in the fridge . . . if I have space!
Thanks. They actually turned out really well. A little crumbly around the edges, but great. It’s also a really satisfying snack. The dates, honey, and coconut oil make it sweet, and the nuts make it filling. I’m definitely going to use the recipe again. Plus it’s such a flexible recipe that I can keep tweaking things to make different flavors 🙂
You can use “flax eggs” instead of egg for pretty much any recipe. That way you don’t need to worry about refrigeration. I’ve been using this method for a while now with great results.
Do these granola bars freeze well? My husband packs a lunch everyday and would like to make a week or two worth of granola bars at one time.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t freeze well. They would come out really solid because of the coconut oil, and then soften up!