The “You can make them your way” Bars
Ingredients:
- 2 cups quick cooking rolled oats
- 1 cup flour
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- ¾ cup dried cranberries
- ½ cup wheat germ
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup honey
- 1 large egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 13×9 inch pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, brown sugar, cranberries, wheat germ, salt, cinnamon, and pecans.
In a smaller bowl, thoroughly blend oil, honey, egg, and vanilla; pour into flour mixture, and mix by hand until the liquid is evenly distributed. I use rubber gloves for this. Press evenly into the prepared baking pan. Make sure it is packed in tightly.
Bake 25-30 minutes in the oven or until the edges are golden.
Cool completely in pan before turning out onto a cutting board and cutting into bars. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap.
Notes:
Call them a chewy granola bar or an energy bar, either way, these are good! They freeze well also (wrap them up two bars to a bag for an easy trail snack out of the freezer.) Trust me, you will LOVE these bars. Yes, they are high in fat, but if you are hiking hard, you will burn it off. And they are better for you than a candy bar.
These bars take well to using applesauce or baby prunes as part of the oil. Brown sugar Splenda® works well as a way to cut back on the sugar content for diabetics. Any nut can be used, and feel free to change the fruit or add chocolate chips, etc to the batter! These bars have been made by a number of hikers on hiking forums, and the consensus is they are dang good!-no matter how you change the recipe!
With homemade items try to eat your product within 3-4 days of baking it. Most homemade items can be frozen safely in advance (cut into individual portions, wrap, and store in large freezer bags.). Most frozen items are good for 1-2 months in a freezer.