Homemade Granola Bars?

So I am totally considering jumping on the Whole Foods/Real Food bandwagon but having two (soon to be three) young children makes it a little more difficult. But one thing I am going to try is to cut down on the amount of pre-packaged snacks we eat. One of our staples are chocolate chip granola bars, we average about a box a week. I thought these would be a pretty easy thing to make at home but after scouring the Internet, most recipes I found resulted in a more crunchy bar and I knew The Girls would have no part in that. So I decided to try my hand at modifying a recipe for oatmeal cookies and see if I could create something from that. I was actually quite happy with how they turned out and Lainey liked them too. Matt tolerated them and Peyton didn't like them but she wasn't a very big fan of granola bars to begin with.

So, here is my recipe:

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips

1)Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl beat applesauce, brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl.
2) Beat in vanilla and eggs
3) Beat in as much of the flour as you can.
4) Stir in remaining flour.
5) Stir in rolled oats.
6) Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for 30 minutes.
7) Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate chips.
8) Allow to sit for 5 minutes or long enough for chips to melt. Spread chocolate evenly over the top.
9). Cool completely before cutting.

*I started by cutting ours into bars but decided that 1-inch squares were a better answer.
**modifications I made from the original recipe were to replace butter with unsweetened applesauce, I used 1/2 the amount of brown and granulated sugar, and I use whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour.

I'm not sure where these would stack up against the packaged bars in terms of sugars but I do feel better bout cutting out some of hos preservatives.

Next step-homemade nutrigrain bars. Anybody have a good recipe?

Categories: Parenting , Recipes