Recipe for granola drop-bars
Here is a granola "bar" recipe that's tender, holds together, and doesn't taste like a candy bar! My primary goal was to develop an oatmeal-delivery system that doubles as a breakfast or filling post-workout snack, holds together well enough to be easily portable, and is low in sugar and sugar analogs.
Pretty much all granola bars and granola bar recipes I've seen are held together with what is essentially candied sugar(*). The nutrition info for them ends up being about 20%-30% sugar by weight.(**) While that is very tasty, it is not what I was looking for. This recipe is tender and only barely sweet, more like a dense moist bread with a hint of sweetness. It also has a bit of texture, rather like cornbread made with coarse-grain corn meal. And you can pronounce all of the ingredients.
Ingredients
- 120g pitted dates
- 60g dried apricots
- 1/3 tsp salt
- (OPTIONAL) 2 Tbsp whole flax seed (flax meal is fine)
- (OPTIONAL) 9g orange peel, most of white pith cut off, can double this
- 1 cup water, boiling hot (or very hot is fine)
- 120g oatmeal, whizzed into rough flour in a food processor
- 180g almond meal
Directions
Soak the dried fruit, salt, flax seed (if using), and citrus peel (if using) in boiling water and let sit 30-60 minutes or more. Blend fairly well, either in a tall bowl with a narrow bottom or a tall cup suitable for an immersion blender. You can try to get some of the seeds chopped up so they are digestible, but it's not necessary for cohesion of the final product.
Add nut flour and oat flour to the bowl (or if using immersion blender cup, put dry ingredients in bowl and add wet fruit goo). Mix well with heavy spoon. Plop 30 balls onto parchment paper. These do not spread in the oven, so flatten a bit with wet metal spoon or wet fingers until they're like thick cookies (about 1/3" thick or a little over 2" diameter, some rough edges are fine). Bake 15 min at 350 degF. Let sit about 10 min then twist gently to remove from parchment.
Store in airtight container when completely cool (about 10 min more).
Notes
I added the orange peel because this recipe is so non-sweet and mild that a little non-oat flavor is nice. I'm going to be trying a peanut butter (instead of almond flour) + raisin (instead of dates) with cinnamon combination soon.
Also, while this is not super calorie-dense, neither is this a low calorie food.
Foot Notes
(*) The exception for using sugar as a binder amongst the recipes I looked at were the 2 recipes that have egg as a binder.
(**) The one off-the-shelf granola bar that was down in the 10% sugar-by-weight category made it up in crowd-pleasing flavor by using "chicory root", aka inulin, which is a fiber that tastes somewhat sweet. While you may think "Fiber = good!" and "non-sugar natural sweetener = good!", there can be gastrointestinal issues. I found my tastebuds like it but my gut does not.
Nutrition Information
Normally for a snack I'd eat 2 of these, or 3 if I'm hungry. For breakfast I'd probably have 3-4 and in all cases, drink a big glass of water. These are 12% sugar by weight. If you want sweeter w/o sugar, you could always add your favorite sugar substitute.
Serving Size 25 g
Calories = 65
Calories from Fat = 31
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 3.4g 5%
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 28mg 1%
Potassium 94mg 3%
Total Carbohydrates 7.4g 2%
Dietary Fiber 1.7g 7%
Sugars 3.0g
Protein 2.0g
Vitamin A 1% Vitamin C 1%
Calcium 2% Iron 3%
* Based on a 2000 calorie diet