Granola Bars

Firstly, I want to say a MASSIVE thanks to all those who contributed a guest post. I loved reading what other people have been making, and it has filled me with inspiration! It feels good to be back in the hot-seat though!


When I'm at work and need a snack I often turn to cereal bars, I have found a few healthy ones (where I can pronounce all of the ingredients, and sugar isn't the number one ingredient), but they are expensive and tend not to be very filling. 


My recipe does contain sugar, but considerably less than a lot of the granola bar recipes I found.  Although they aren't particularly low in calories or fat (175 calories and 6.7g per bar) they give good slow-releasing carbs from the oats and fruits and have good fat from the seeds and nuts. The great thing about these granola bars is you can substitute whatever you have in your cupboard for the ingredients below, as long as you keep the ratio of wet and dry ingredients more or less the same. For example you could try pumpkin seeds instead of sunflower seeds, hazelnuts instead of walnuts and apricots instead of figs.

Roxanne's Granola Bars

What you need:
220g rolled oats
50g sunflower seeds
30g walnuts, finely chopped
5g flaked almonds
40g ground almonds
20g linseed
100g runny honey
20g fruit sugar *
60g butter
40g dried cranberries
160g dried figs, chopped into small pieces



Step 1

(If you're short on time you could miss this step as I don't think it makes a lot of difference). Preheat your oven to 180°C. Take a flat baking tray and spread out the oats, sunflower seeds and walnuts. Toast in the oven for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so.


Step 2
After 10 minutes of the toasting has gone by, gently melt the honey, sugar and butter in a saucepan.


Step 3
Remove the oat mixture, and immediately mix with the melted ingredients, stir in the almonds, linseed and dried fruit. Reduce the oven to 150°C


Step 4
Spoon the mixture into a lined, 9 x 9-inch baking tin. Press the mixture down with the back of a metal spoon or your fingers until it is even and firm.


Step 5
Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until golden on top and firm to the touch. (not too firm as you don't want it to break your teeth!)


Step 6
Now the important part (that I disobeyed), leave the mixture in the tin until it is completely cooled - i.e. as long as you possibly can (perhaps leave the house for an hour so you're not tempted to touch it). If you don't the middle is likely to fall apart a bit. In my defence I was cooking this at midnight and wanted to go to sleep. When completely cooled cut into 16 pieces.


*I haven't cooked with fruit sugar before, and so I did some research on the internet. Basically it has the same amount of calories as regular sugar but is three times as sweet which means by my complicated maths you need three times as less...It's fairly easy to find in supermarkets.



Nutritional information (per bar)
175 cal, 3.8g protein, 22g carbohydrates (13g of which sugars), 6.7g fat (0.9g of which saturates), 3.3g fibre.
Inspiration for this recipe was found here.