Snacks are a wonderful, very necessary, slightly indulgent part of everyday life. They are the food-world version of naps – and everyone knows how much naps rock. Couch naps. Sunday morning naps. Post-thanksgiving dinner naps. Naps by the fire. Naked naps. Naps in the sunny reading nook on summer afternoons. And then there’s the snacks: Cookies. Pretzels. Graham crackers with brown sugar and butter (a Morris household specialty). Bananas with peanut butter. Hummus. Chips and salsa. Peach-mango smoothies. You get the picture.
Homemade granola bars have been on my “to make” list for a very long time, but I haven’t gotten around to it because I had kind of assumed they would be sort of time consuming. False. These literally took seven minutes to mix together. Seven. There are very few days when I don’t have seven minutes to bake. Plus, they were much much better than I was expecting them to be. For an egg-less, butter-less, oil-less, sugar-less baked good packed with flax and oats, they were so good. One warning: if you’re expecting the crunchy snap of a Nature granola bar, these might disappoint – they are decidedly chewy. It seems as though most of the recipes I’ve found use the same base recipe, but if I find a recipe for a truly crunchy bar, I will definitely share. In the meantime, enjoy these as an appropriate pre-exam snack. Or maybe even a pre-nap snack.
Butterscotch, Peanut Butter, and Pretzel Granola Bars
Makes 12 granola bars.
- 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
- 2 TBS agave nectar
- 1/3 c. creamy peanut butter
- 1 1/3 c. old fashioned oats
- 2/3 c. high fiber, small, crunchy cereal (bran buds, flax bites, puffed rice, etc.)
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2/3 c. butterscotch chips
- 1/4 c. broken pretzel pieces
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8 inch pan with parchment paper.
- Combine applesauce, peanut butter, and agave nectar, mixing until evenly textured. Fold in oats, cereal, salt, chips, and pretzel pieces. Spoon batter into pan and smooth into an even layer with back of spoon.
- Bake until golden brown, 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 5 mintues. Then remove from pan by lifting edges of parchment paper. Allow to cool completely (mine were best after letting them set overnight) before cutting, or they will fall apart.
Dining and Cooking