Wednesday, June 27, 2012

PSA: Best granola bar recipe

Everyone needs a good granola bar recipe.  And I have the best one.  It's the best because it is simply a basic framework upon which one can build whatever type of granola bar one wants.

The basics are butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and salt. And two cups of granola.  As you'll see from the recipe (which I have linked below), "granola" has a pretty fluid description.  And that's the beauty of the recipe.  Define granola as you wish, and make the bars. You have to love them.

Since I try to keep a variety of nuts, seeds, and grains around, I can have a lot of fun with this recipe. Last week my "granola" consisted of rolled oats, sunflower seeds, flaxseed meal, pecans, Bob's Red Mill High-Fiber Cereal, Bob's Red Mill Oat Bran cereal, and chocolate chips.  Oh, and some cocoa powder.  Yes, you might call that a brownie. But a somewhat healthful brownie.  They were delicious.  I had wondered if I should have increased the sugar to offset the bitterness of the cocoa, but as it happens, my family is losing our taste for super-sweet foods, so they were perfect.  They made a great take-along snack for our little vacation.  

There is a sweet story to go along with the recipe at The Baking Circle, the King Arthur Flour baking blog.  This recipe has been around a while - I found it in my KAF 200th Anniversary Baking Book which I have owned forever.  I use it so much the book just opens at that page.  I'm glad to have found it online because one day that book is just going to disintegrate!   But I suspect that when it does, I'll just buy another, because besides the best granola bar recipe, there is much to love in that cookbook. 

Go ahead, make your family happy and bake some of those bars today.




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