We’ve been busy! December has come and gone and with it came a LOT of baking adventures. Many with my little assistants, some solo. While I find baking solo to be fairly relaxing, for me it’s not nearly as much fun as making a mess in the kitchen with the kids. Lucky for me, one of them usually wants to be involved.
While December was all about cookies and treats January has been about perfecting some grab and go snack recipes. We have a great no bake granola bar recipe that I almost always have on hand, but the perfect baked granola bar recipe has eluded us…until now!
We’d been trying out different recipes and tweaking them here and there but they had been consistently disappointing. We finally scrapped that idea, took our tried and true granola recipe, changed it slightly, and baked them. WE DID IT! They’re crunchy on the edges, slightly chewy in the middle (although cooking them longer would make them a bit less so if you would prefer), and just the right sweetness! They’re so good I have to make a second batch almost immediately because the first was being eaten too quickly.
Without further ado, the recipe!
Preheat the oven to 325*
In a large bowl mix:
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup pecan pieces
1/2 cup almond flour
4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Dash of salt
In a small saucepan brown 1/2 cup of butter then remove from heat and stir in 3/4 cup maple syrup (the real stuff!) and 3 teaspoons of vanilla.
Poor butter mixture over oats mixture and mix well.
Dump into a parchment lined 9×13 baking dish and press down evenly. Bake for 45 min or until golden brown and the center has reached the desired consistency. (We didn’t want ours super crunchy)
Let cool completely and cut!
Please let us know how these turn out if you make them. We’ve been eating them non stop! Happy baking friends!
100 days of baking with kids 