Chewy Granola Bars
These homemade chewy granola bars are easily customized to taste with your own favorite fruits and nuts. Step-by-step photos illustrating how to make these granola bars are available at Bakers' Banter, our King Arthur blog.
- 1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons Sticky Bun Sugar
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar, optional (see "tips" at right)
- 1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup quick oats, processed till finely ground in a food processor or blender)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
- 2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts*
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup melted butter or vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup honey, maple syrup or corn syrup
- 1 tablespoon water
- *We like 1/2 cup each dried cranberries, chopped dried apricots, chopped pecans, sunflower seeds, and coconut. Walnuts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried cherries or apples, or even chocolate chips would all be delicious as well.
Directions
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Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan. |
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2) In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, melted butter or oil, syrup or honey, and water. |
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5) Bake the bars for 25 to 30 minutes, until they're golden brown around the edges. |
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6) Remove them from the oven, loosen the edges, and cool for 5 minutes. |
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8) Wrap bars individually to store; or place in a single layer on a plate, and cover with plastic; or store in layers with parchment in between. In humid weather, it's best to store bars in the refrigerator. They also freeze well. |
Recipe summary
- Hands-on time:
- 10 mins.
- Baking time:
- 25 mins.
- Total time:
- 35 mins.
- Yield:
- about one dozen 2" x 4 1/2" bars.
- Recipe comments (32) »
Tips from our bakers
- Sticky bun sugar gives these bars a lovely crisp edge with a chewy center. If you don't want to use sticky bun sugar, you can make bars that come close to that texture by substituting 3/4 cup granulated sugar + 2 tablespoons light corn syrup + 2 tablespoons melted butter for the sticky bun sugar. And yes, you'll still add the additional granulated sugar (if you want to; see note below) and butter as called for in the recipe.
- If you add lots of sweet dried fruit to these bars, you'll probably want to leave out the 1/3 cup granulated sugar, as the fruit will help sweeten the bars. If you use only nuts, seeds, and/or tart/tangy dried fruit, you may want to add the sugar; it's up to you.
- This recipe is a great example of why a scale is such a key baking tool. Simply line up your favorite dried fruits and nuts, set your mixing bowl on the scale, and add a bit of this (or a lot of that) till the scale reads 10 to 15 ounces.
- Did you know that supermarket ("fake") maple syrup isn't nearly as sweet as 100% ("real") maple syrup? If you want to use maple-flavored cane syrup in this recipe, you may want to increase the amount of granulated sugar by 2 tablespoons.
- For granola bars with a hint of peanut flavor, add 1/3 cup peanut butter to the dry ingredients along with the other wet ingredients.
Reviews
10/04/2009
Just made these using the honey and butter, adding peanut butter, cranberries, coconut, apricots, walnuts, omitting the additional sugar. I did use the sticky bun sugar. I lined the pan with parchment so had no trouble getting them out. They were soft to cut, but have held together nicely since they cooled. Absolutely will be making these again!
09/29/2009
I tried this for the first time last night without the sticky bun sugar. I did not add the extra sugar and I used honey. I used 6.5 oz mangoes and 4 oz coconut and butter rather than oil. I used parchment in my pan. After the 5 minutes, I used a bench knife to score the bars. I waited another 5-10 minutes and removed the parchment from the pan. As they cooled a bit, I went back with the bench knife (2-3 times) and gradually separated them so they would maintain a bar shape. I wrapped them individually in aluminum foil when cool. This worked very well and they are holding their shape nicely today. My husband and I like them, but the kids did not - they said they were too sweet (although it could be because they were warm when they tried them). Could I reduce the honey or butter slightly (they seemed to collect on the bottom, making it really sweet)
or increase the oats?
With all the dried fruit you used you may want to reduce the amount of honey but maybe just by 1 tablespoon. This may be a trial and error on your part till you reach the correct balance for your taste. Try halving the butter and see if you like the results. Joan@bakershotline
09/08/2009
I've made these many times, never the same way twice, but always a hit. The faves so far are dried blueberry/sliced almond/cinnamon and almond butter/mini choc. chip. These are also easy combos, since there is no need to chop any dried fruit (although dried apricots are delicious in here, too!). I have made them with agave syrup and brown rice syrup in place of honey with great results. I always add some ground flax meal and oat bran to up the nutrition. I would classify them as more of a treat than a health food, but they are still better for you than your typical cookie!
08/31/2009
Sugar, much? This should be a dessert.
08/17/2009
Wonderful recipe and very versatile too. I made it for my husband and he liked it very much. After reading all the comments i lined the pan with lightly greased foil so these bars comes out very easily. I used corn syrup mixture instead of sticky bun sugar and omit the extra sugar I also use some cornflakes in and they give some crunch. Thanx for sharing such a good recipe.
08/03/2009
This is a good recipe, if you like standard granola bars. Except that it crumbled too much, and was too hard to store. I took care of that by changing the recipe, see below, and making the recipe in a 9" square pan lined with old-fashioned wax paper, greasing the pan and the paper. I baked it for 45 minutes, and cut into 16 squares, which were much easier to handle, and didn't crumble nearly as much. My main problem is that these are too sweet. Only suitable for athletic teenagers with good teeth. I do have good teeth, but the rest... and my husband is diabetic. I did make the recipe as called for, but the next time, in addition to the pan change, I only used 1 ounce of sticky bun sugar, added an egg, left out the white sugar entirely, as before, increased the honey to 3 ounces and increased the oil to 2 1/2 ounces, although I may reduce the as well. Not so much like a cookie, but still sweet enough. I think the sweetness should come from the dried fruit, myself. Extra cinnamon is also good. I also added 1 ounce of wheat germ. Chopped apricots and sunflower seeds work well I am in search of a tasty healthful granola bar, and the recipe as presented does fall short. I shall experiment more and see what happens.
07/17/2009
I will need to make this a few times to get it right, I think. Not knowing how they should look when "done," I cooked them 25 min, which was too long and they were a little too hard. But the flavor is basically good and my husband and son ate them all. I made them kind of spur-of-the-moment and all I had on hand to add was mini choc chips, almonds, and sunflower seeds. I think they definitely would have benefitted from some dried fruits.
07/07/2009
My mother is a diabetic but she loves granola. Do you think this could be made with sugar-free syrup and splenda and get the same results?
We haven't tried making it this way but the sugar free syrup should work nicely.Joan@bakershotline
07/04/2009
I made these today and followed the recipe, however I did not have the Sticky Bun Sugar, the only comment I have is that they seem to be rather oily. I used all butter, I wonder if the humidity made a difference? Would increasing the oat flour to 1/2 cup compensate for that or would it make them to dry and hard? Other than that, they are highly addictive. Blueberries with white chocolate chips, coconut and pecans is the BEST! Even the picky child in the house can't stay out of them. Thanks for this great and easy recipe.
We haven't tried the change with the increased oat flour. It might do the trick. Give it a try and let us know. Mary @ KAF
06/30/2009
I made these bars expecting to have them to my self because my husband doesn't usually care for things like this...Well that was not the case. He liked them as much as I did. They were simple to make,but the only mistake I made was to put them in my sheet pan instead of a 9x13.They came out good anyway.Note to self...read recipe completely before beginning. Thank you again for a great recipe....L.C.
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