It’s Tuesdays With Dorie time. To start out the new year, we picked the Granola Energy Bars from Dorie’s Baking Chez Moi. How fun for me to have a recipe that didn’t need altering. I just used gluten free oats. We could use any nuts and dried fruits we wanted and the granola bars were easy to make.
Dorie mentioned that these were best with brown rice syrup and I’ve been wanting to get some and try it so I bought some (and yay, it was on sale). I did exactly as the recipe said, but only baked these for 20 minutes, not 25-30 and they were super crispy/hard. Bummer. So much that we had a hard time cutting them immediately.
Well, never fear—I decided to make them again. This time, I changed up the nuts and fruit a bit (I went with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut and peanuts and just raisins. But I decided to use raw honey and lower the temperature of the oven. When I make granola, I bake it at 300 degrees F. It was written in the recipe to bake these at 325 degrees F. So I went with 300 degrees and I used raw honey instead of the brown rice syrup. I baked the new batch for only 20 minutes as well. They seemed a lot softer. Enough that I was even worried they wouldn’t cut into bars. But I waited as the recipe said—let them cool for 3 hours and while they hardened up nicely, they were much better, still a little more firm than I like a chewy granola bar to be, but I am going to love having them for snacks for the next week. I wonder if it’s a high altitude thing?
I couldn’t help it—with the peanuts and raisins, I kept thinking about those candy bars called Chunky that have peanuts and raisins in them and I decided these granola bars needed to be dipped in chocolate. LOVE! I’m so smart. Just kidding. Dorie mentioned in the recipe that you can add any and all kinds of nuts and fruit and chocolate if you want. I never think of chocolate………….(right!?) I used some 70% organic chocolate (3 ounces) melted with about 1/2 teaspoon of coconut oil.
When I didn’t have enough chocolate left to keep dipping the bars, I drizzled the rest over the remaining bars.
Never fear—I did not and will not throw out the first bars that are so hard. This morning, I put them in some almond milk on the stove and waited and watched and broke them up as they softened and turned them in to my morning oatmeal! Good stuff!
