Chewy Granola Bars

My husband eats a granola bar every day.  When I first met him they were cinnamon raisin, he now favors a peanut butter chocolate chip.  He challenged me to try to make them. I did. He tasted them.  He loved them.  He actually said 'they're almost too good to be true.'

YES!! I love when something is such a success. And so practical.  We're practically a sustainable household now that we don't need store bought granola bars.

I made two variations: cinnamon raisin and peanut butter with a butterscotch drizzle.  If I had to pick which one was better I say the peanut butter, because I love peanut butter and I love butterscotch (you could easily switch up with chocolate). Plus, they turned out a little softer and less chewy than the cinnamon raisin.  The cinnamon raisin are delicious if you love cinnamon and raisin.  They are a bit firmer and perhaps less dessert-tasting than the PB.

Recipe: Peanut Butter with Butterscotch Drizzle

• 2 1/4 cups rolled oats (oatmeal)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 cup honey crunch wheat germ (or toasted)
• 1/2 stick butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (don't use natural, I don't think)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Glaze

• 1/2 cup butterscotch chips
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Preheat the oven to 350.  Toss the oatmeal with the canola oil, and toast on a baking sheet for 10 minutes in the oven.  Pour into a bowl, and add the wheat germ (you can find this in the cereal aisle).  Reduce the oven to 300 degrees.  In a saucepan, melt the butter; whisk in the honey, peanut butter, brown sugar, and salt. Bring to a very low boil, remove from heat and add the vanilla.  Stir the sauce into the toasted oats.

Line an 8x8 or 9x9 inch baking dish with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray.  Press the granola into the dish, and bake at 300 for about 20 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Let cool completely.

To make the glaze, melt the chips over low heat in a double boiler with the butter and corn syrup, and whisk until it comes together (it doesn't look like it's going to but it does).   It doesn't melt very easy and is a little sticky once it does, but if you can drizzle (I just used the whisk I was stirring with), I promise you it dries perfectly. Doesn't smear, doesn't stick, it's just a perfect consistency.  Drizzle it over the bars and let cool. Cut into rectangle or squares.

Recipe: Cinnamon Raisin
Simply reduce the oats to 2 cups, replace the 1/3 cup peanut butter with another cup of honey.  Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon into the oat/wheat germ mixture, along with 1/2 cup raisins. Omit the glaze.

Then you can wrap them up for mobility purposes:

 

**Note:  I recently made a vegan version of this recipe, where I replaced the 1/4 cup butter with 3 tablespoons of canola oil, and oil for butter in the glaze. They turned out almost the same!