Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Hey, all.  It's your resident baker, Jess.  If any of you out there have kids or nieces/nephews, you might have noticed how kids feel about granola bars.  I'm pretty sure my kid could polish off three or four of them in one sitting.  I love that they're a fast way to give her a snack, but I don't love the added sugar or processed nature.  So that's why I decided to give this recipe for Crunchy Oatmeal Peanut Butter Oats 'N Honey Bars from Half Baked Harvest (Btw, have you guys seen this blog?  Everything she cooks looks amazing and her brother is Red Gerard, recent Olympic Gold Medalist).

Anyway, to get started, I grabbed my ingredients, all of which I already had in my pantry.  I substituted canola oil (see my note at the end) for coconut oil.

You'll want to mix together the peanut butter, oil and honey and microwave it in a measuring cup for around a minute.  Baker tip--spray the inside of your measuring cup with cooking spray to keep the honey from sticking to the cup.

Once it's heated, add the brown sugar and vanilla and stir to combine.    In the meantime, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix thoroughly.  Again, you might want to spray your spatula to prevent it from sticking.

Pour it into the pan, which we sprayed and lined with parchment paper.  Spray the back of a measuring cup and use it to press down the mixture.  You want it to pack tightly together so that it holds when you bake.  This is a great job for a kid sous chef.

The recipe says to heat the extra peanut butter in the microwave and drizzle on top.  Mine never really got thin enough to drizzle, so I just sort of spread it around.

Bake for around 20 minutes and then let it cool for 10-20 minutes before slicing (see note).  Now get ready to snack!

Notes:

• The recipe only calls for 2 tablespoons of oil, but I found that my mixture was a little on the dry side.  As a result, the bars crumbled a little as I cut and stored them.  I think if I were to make them again, I would add another tablespoon of oil and/or more peanut butter to give it a little more moisture.
• The recipe suggests you cool the bars for 10-20 minutes before slicing.  I'd say, I would cut around 10 minutes of cooling.  I waited longer and found that the bars were starting to get a little brittle.  We'll probably eat the pieces as granola, but if you want actual bars, cut sooner.

There you have it!  A great snack AND you can feel good about them because they're homemade.  Give them a try and let us know what you think in the comments below!