I love to come up with new recipes or add my own flair to someone else's recipe. I came up with this diverse recipe because I was sick of buying granola bars that are over processed and filled with crap!
The beauty of this recipe is that the combinations are endless! I am going to give you my basic recipe and some variations on what you can do with it.
First step you need to make a coarse nut flour, here is the first place you can use your imagination or what I do is use what I happen to have on hand. In this recipe I used sunflower seeds to make the flour. You can use almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, flax, peanuts and any combination of the above!
In a food processor coarsely chop 2 1/2 cups of sunflower seeds (or as I said any combination of what you have on hand) DO NOT OVER PROCESS OR YOU WILL MAKE NUT BUTTER!
Place the flour in a large bowl
Next add 2 cups of nuts, seeds & dried fruit.
I used tropical fruit & nut mix, sunflower seeds, flax, chia & hemp seeds.
Add 1tsp of Cinnamon
You could add 1/4tsp of salt but I didn't since the sunflower seeds were already salted.
Next step heat
1/2 cup of Honey
1/4 cup Organic Coconut Oil
And a splash of Organic Maple Syrup
When combined pour this mixture over the fruit & nuts and mix well.
Next you can press this into a 9" x 13" pan
I however used this handy petites pan I purchases from my friend Rita. It is the absolute perfect pan for making these bars this recipe divides perfectly into. If you want to purchase one please comment or email me and I will get you in contact with her.
In your preheated 350 oven bake for 18-20 minutes
Let these cool completely before trying to remove them from the pan and cutting.
Remember I said the variations on this recipe are endless well here is the second kind I made last night. I started off with the same 2 1/2cups of sunflower seed flour but this time I added in a total of
2 cups of tropical fruit & nut mix and dark chocolate, milk chocolate & yogurt covered cranberries.
For texture and binding coarsely chop the cranberry mix in a food processor. In this recipe I omitted the cinnamon and didn't add salt.
Next variation I heated 3/4 cup of peanut butter and a splash of Organic Maple Syrup. You could use almond butter, tahini, honey, Nutella whatever combination you like to create the flavour you love! And then combine with fruit & nuts and mix well. These bars are baked exactly the same as the others in a preheated 350 oven for 18-20 Minutes. Make sure to cool these completely and refrigerate them before trying to remove these from the pan or cutting them.
The pure joy of these recipes is that you control what's in them. They are a hardy snack of pure natural goodness with no fillers or chemicals. You can feel great eating them and feeding these to your family.
