Thursday, July 5, 2012

Homemade Clif Bars

I can't believe it's taken me this long to blog about this incredible recipe. I feel like I'm constantly telling people about it. I posted the following picture on Instagram and Facebook on Monday and was flooded with requests for the recipe, so here you go, everyone!


The original recipe that I used is from Enlightened Cooking. My recipe is pretty tweaked from the original, but I certainly can't claim to be the one who came up with this. You can easily half this recipe and do it in an 8x8 pan like the original recipe, but if I'm going to go to all that trouble, I want to make a big batch.

In a small saucepan, melt on low 1 ounce unsweetened baker's chocolate. Add:
1 cup honey
1 cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

ONLY heat this enough to melt the chocolate. If you let it cook or come to a boil, it will be too thick and your bars will be drier.

In a large bowl, combine: 
2 1/2 cups Crispix*
2 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats**
1/4 cup ground flaxseed 
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup finely chopped nuts or seeds (I use sunflower seeds because they are the cheapest)
A few dashes of spices (like pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon) as desired 

Combine all ingredients and stir until well-blended. Dump mixture into a well greased 9x13 inch baking dish, cover with wax paper, and press it down as hard and even as you can***. Pre cut into squares or bars and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes to harden. Put two squares or one bar each into snack sized ziploc baggies and store in fridge.

*The original recipe calls for Rice Krispies, but be warned that Rice Krispies (and many other cereals) contain BHT in the packaging, a preservative that is known to cause cancer and disrupt hormones. I prefer to use crushed up Crispix in Josh's bars because it doesn't contain BHT, and Josh prefers the taste and texture of bars made from Crispix over Rice Krispies. I prefer something without any added sugar in mine, so I use millet puffs that I buy at our local health food store. In other words, there are several things you can use here, so figure out what works best for you.

**It is debated about whether or not oats contain gluten. Some say oats are contaminated by wheat in the fields, and others say they are contaminated in the factories where they are processed. Either way, I notice that regular oats give me the brain fog that I get from gluten, so I use Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Oats in my bars.

***I've actually started skipping this step and taking the mixture straight from the mixing bowl to the baggies and I press them into bar shapes in the baggies. It isn't as pretty, but a lot less work.


ETA 4-17-13:
I just came across another healthy bar recipe that I am going to try ASAP:
http://wholenewmom.com/whole-new-budget/homemade-protein-bars/

I'll let you know what I think once I've made them, but they get rave reviews over there!

7 comments:

  1. Amanda and I made these today, and they turned out yummy! The mixture was more dry than we expected -- are yours pretty crumbly? Still, very tasty. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Oh I love cliff bars and this recipe looks delicious!!

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  3. Follow up: we must've overcooked the chocolate. Every other time I've made them (several!), they've been perfect. :)

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  4. What is the point if people can't print this off to try it? Action disabled...?

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  5. Agree; please remove the disable feature...

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  6. I modified this recipe: I doubled it, adding some ingredients to the basic recipe while omitting others. I melted one cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (sorry, 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate doesn't cut it!) with 1 cup EACH of honey and organic peanut butter, 1/4 cup almond butter, and 2 tbsp. light brown sugar until smooth. Once off the flame I added the 2 tsp. vanilla, along with 1/2 cup of brown rice syrup. In a separate bowl I added 2 1/2 cups Rice Krispies, the 3 tbsp. ground flaxseed, 1/2 cup EACH of dried cherries (I didn't bother to chop them) and roasted, salted sunflower seeds. I eliminated the almond extract because that and vanilla don't compliment each other. I also eliminated the oatmeal because these are just moist enough with the cereal, and the added oatmeal, in my opinion, would make them dry and crumbly. You can also vary these bars by adding whole white chocolate chips and chopped macadamia nuts, or raisins and walnuts. Whatever flavor combination you can come up with, this is a good base to start with! Another tip is to place the mixture in a 9-inch silicone pan sprayed with vegetable spray.

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  7. Just highlight what you want to print (the recipe) and paste it into notepad, wordpad, word, etc and print.

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