Granola Energy Bars – Tuesdays With Dorie

It’s been a cold week here in Cleveland Heights so there were a couple good reasons to do some baking – I was able to try this recipe and having the oven on kept the kitchen warm. I’ve tried making granola in the past without much success – the bars ended up being dry and flavorless and they fell apart when cutting them. Not so here – these were a great chewy consistency and the combination of dried fruits with the oats, sunflower and pumpkin seeds was really delicious. I used dried cherries, dried cranberries and raisins and then threw in a few mini chocolate chips I had in the cupboard for good measure. I’d never heard of brown rice syrup and thought I’d be looking all over the city trying to locate some but was pleasantly surprised to find it in my local supermarket. I liked the way it held everything together and I think it also gave the bars more flavor than using corn syrup.

Here are a couple photographs of the granola bars being put together. This shows the fruit and dry ingredient mix:

Here are the bars coming out of the oven:

I’ll definitely make these again – they were remarkably easy to do and they taste great. Also, the temperature’s supposed to be going down into the single digits the next couple of nights so it might be sooner than later.