Try this recipe, or contribute your own.
- 1 cup dates
- 1/4 cup nut butter (peanut butter almond butter, cashew butter, whatever you like!)
- 1 1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats
- 1 cup nuts (almonds peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts, whatever you like!)
- optional 1/2 cup extras (chocolate chips dried fruit like cranberries, raisins, apricots, coconut)
- optional 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice mix, or salt
- Carbohydrate 12.7743107142857 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.512485714285714 g
- Fiber 1.57044645615986 g
- Protein 1.20827678571429 g
- Saturated Fat 0.0836367857142857 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Granola Bar (18g)
- Sodium 0.643928571428572 mg
- Sugar 11.2038642581259 g
- Trans Fat 0.113538214285714 g
- Calories 57 calories
Step-by-step
- If you are toasting the oats and nuts (see step 5) preheat your oven to 350F (180C) if you are
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper or plastic wrap, and leave excess hanging over the sides so you have little handles to pick the bars up when you are done. Set that aside.
- Pit the dates. If dates are new to you, all you have to do is to split the date open with your fingers, and pull out the pit. If you find your dates are a bit hard or dry, soak them in hot water for 10 minutes before tossing in the food processor. We want to make sure they are at peak stickiness as they are the main glue for the bars.
- Toss those dates in your food processor and pulse until it forms a gooey paste ball.
- Optional: Heat your oven to 350F (180C) and toast the oats and nuts for 10 – 15 mins. You can skip this step if you want to keep your bars raw, or if you are just feeling lazy (no judgements!), but toasting will enhance the flavours.
- In a small sauce pan, heat up the nut butter just until it is heated through and becomes a bit runny.
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix. If you are adding chocolate chips or anything else melty, let the mixture cool a bit before adding them so they don’t melt. You may need to get in there with your fingers to really finish mixing it all up. Be careful, it may be hot!
- Scoop the granola mixture into the parchment lined pans and smooth and pack the bars down until they are firmly packed into the bottom of the pan. Really pack them down, so they hold together.
- Toss them in the freezer to set for 20 minutes or as long as you like. When ready to chop the bars, pop them out of the pan and using a sharp knife slice them up into bar shapes.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
Swapping standard Medjool dates for dry Deglet Noor varieties will yield a crumbly, uncooperative mixture that refuses to hold its shape. Dates provide the necessary fructose syrup and sticky fiber matrix required to bind oats and nuts together without baking. Dried fruit contains varying levels of internal moisture. When dates feel rigid, hydrate them in hot water for 10 minutes to restore plasticity before processing.
The Physics of Binding Granola Bars
Successful bar structure relies entirely on moisture control and physical compression. Cold processing dates in a machine creates a dense, adhesive paste. Gently warming nut butter lowers its viscosity so it coats the dry rolled oats evenly. Thorough mechanical compaction inside the pan forces air pockets out of the mass. Press the mixture firmly with the flat bottom of a measuring cup until the surface is completely level. Freezing for 20 minutes solidifies the lipid matrix of the nut butter, locking the compressed particles into a rigid slab ready for slicing with a sharp chef knife.
- Bars crumble when sliced: The mixture lacked sufficient compression or the dates were too dry. Pack the pan harder next time.
- Bars melt at room temperature: High ambient temperatures soften the nut butter bonds. Store finished bars inside an airtight container in the refrigerator.
