I’ll admit that I was somewhat intimidated by this recipe at first glance. But, once I got over trying to locate and acquire the ingredients in these Homemade Granola Bars as listed, this snack was very approachable. I had some oats leftover from the Nutter Butters, so that was easy enough. I don’t do coconut, almonds aren’t my favorite, I have no interest in spending money on wheat germ (doesn’t that just sound gross), and I was sure dried dates and apricots would be harder to find than they would be to write on my grocery list. So I just kind of winged it with the ingredients and substituted Cheerios and ground graham crackers for the coconut (delicious, by the way), cashews for the almonds, and dried strawberries and blueberries for the apricots and dates. I was also a little short on honey, so I made up the difference with molasses. In the end, while these weren’t Ina’s granola bars exactly, they were still pretty yummy. Here’s how they came together:
First, I toasted the oats, graham cracker crumbs, and cashews in the oven.
Then I heated butter, honey, molasses, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt together before stirring that mixture in with the oats, graham crackers, cashews, Cheerios, and dried strawberries, blueberries, and cranberries.
After that, it was just a matter of pressing the mixture into a greased dish, baking, and waiting on them to cool. Easy enough!
This was a nice base recipe and, of course, the variations on this are endless. What a great way to tailor your snacks to your tastes!
