This week, Liz of MyTable,Their Table picked a great recipe for this house to enjoy. Energy Bars!
Ellie Kreiger offers this recipe that is far from too sweet. The bars were a perfect balance of fruit and nuts.
Dried apricots are not very popular with us so pureeing them in the food processor with the rest of the ingredients was a great way to disguise their inclusion in this recipe.
Ingredients
- Cooking spray
- 1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
- 1/2 cup raw unsalted sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
- 1/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (used whole wheat flour)
- 1/2 cup dried apricots
- 1/2 cup raw almonds
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup pitted dried dates
- 1/2 cup powdered nonfat dry milk
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 2 large eggs
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
Place all ingredients except the syrup and eggs in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped. Add the syrup and eggs and pulse until the mixture is well combined. It will resemble a coarse paste.
Transfer to the baking pan and spread evenly. Bake until just done, about 20 minutes
I did make a few changes:
Used Old Fashioned rolled oats instead of quick cooking.
Used raw pumpkin seeds instead of wheat germ.
Dried blueberries were used in place of raisins. *I think this was one of the reasons why our bars were dry. Raisins would have added more moisture than these tiny little blueberries. Another reason may have been the swapping of pumpkin seeds for wheat germ.
Sliced almonds were sprinkled on top of my bars before cooking.
*Suggestion for anyone who intends to make these: When spreading the mixture into your 9 x 13 pan, keep wetting the back of a large spoon to spread. The mixture is paste like and sticky. It’s a real pain to spread unless you wet the spoon.
These were pretty good, a little dry but I’d make them again for sure. Next time, I’ll use raisins.
Good pick Liz. I’ll use these beauties to fuel my workouts.
Joanne
I’m always looking for recipes for homemade energy bars. I have yet to find a winner. I’ll have to try these!
I can’t seem to stray from my favorite Larabars………. 🙂
MMMMMMM,..these energy bars are looking incrdibly tasty!
I love them!
Now that I’ve ready your entry, I kinda wish I had used the dried apricots. I don’t really like them that much either, but I agree that they would have been harder to detect once thrown in the food processor. And how funny – I used those same pumpkin seeds, but I used them in place of sunflower seeds! It’ll be great to read everyone’s variations.
I love pumpkin seeds, they make me happy! also I don’t like dried apricots that much so I also usually hide them in my food 😀
Don’t you just love making your own energy bars? It allows for so much more variety! I love how you swapped the pumpkin seeds for the wheat germ…that would have made me happy!
Oh yum. Thx for sharing! Love the pumpkin seeds.
I love home made energy bars. I really should make some soon, need fuel for my long lectures!
These look so good! I typically try to keep Larabars on hand for afternoon snacks while at school, but I like the idea of making my own bars even better. Too bad about the blueberries making them a little dry because that sounds delicious – especially with the almonds.
These were so easy to put together and very tasty. Isubbed out the apricots because I just didn’t have any and they were still good. Meant to put pepitas in and forgot. I like the sliced almonds on top.