Gluten free granola bars
Oat free, vegan option
Ingredients
- 100 g quinoa flakes
- 2 Australian cups 250-300g nuts and seeds of choice (see body of post for combinations I have used)
- 150 g natural oily peanut butter or tahini
- 175 g 1/2 cup honey or 150g ½ cup maple syrup
- Pinch of fine salt
- Vanilla extract or any spices optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/356F.
- Line an 18.5cm (base measurement) square brownie tin with a large piece of cling film with enough overhang to fold over the granola bars.
- Combine the dry ingredients in a heat safe mixing bowl. Pour the combined mixture onto an oven tray and bake for 10-15 minutes. Baking is both to warm up the ingredients (so the peanut butter mixture won’t seize up when it hits cold nuts) and to toast the ingredients. You can toast them for longer if you’d like, but keep an eye on the quinoa flakes as they are prone to burning.
- 5 minutes before the nut mixture has finished cooking, combine the peanut butter and honey or maple syrup in a small pan over a low medium heat. Use a heatproof silicon spatula to stir the mixture and ensure none is catching on the bottom of the pan.
- Cook the mixture for around 2-4 minutes. I find honey needs less cooking time and maple syrup needs a bit more.
- First, it will look grainy and like the peanut butter is separated from the syrup. Next, it will come together and look glossy. If you draw a line in the mixture with your spatula, it should take a second for the mixture to melt back together.
- As soon as (or just before) little bits of cooked peanut butter start to form (they will look like little clumps) take the mixture off the heat.
- Carefully decant the hot nut mixture into the bowl, then pour over the hot peanut butter mixture. Work quickly to coat all the mixture in the peanut butter – this is what will hold your muesli bars together, so everything needs to be coated and combined.
- Once you’re happy, pour the mixture into the lined tin. Place the overhanging pieces of film down over the granola bars, then use the base of a smaller container (I use a square Tupperware) to press the bars down firmly and evenly into the tray. You need to use pressure so that the bars stay together in bar form once cooled.
- Carefully remove the cling film cover so that the bars don’t sweat and allow them to cool. You can store the bars as a slice in the fridge or cut them up and store them in individual containers.
Notes
- Read the notes in the body of the post for tips and tricks to ensure your peanut sweetener mix is the right consistency.
- Weights are more important than cups in this recipe. This recipe, like all my recipes, is in Australian cups which are slightly larger than most.
- You need to use a tin the same size as mine (or a little smaller) for best results. Using a larger tin will result in thin granola bars and nobody likes that. See notes in the body of the post if you don’t have a tin the same size as mine.
- This recipe needs oily, smooth peanut butter as opposed to dry or homemade peanut butter. The oil helps create a nice consistency to the bars and the instructions for the peanut butter mixture will only work with an oily peanut butter.
- Getting the consistency of the peanut butter mixture right is crucial to success. Too soft and the bars won’t stick together. Too firm and you have essentially made nut brittle – it will be extremely chewy and crispy (trust me, been there).
- If your bars don’t hold together, you have either not cooked the peanut mixture for long enough or you haven’t pressed them down firmly enough (or both). Fixing one or both of these should result in a better consistency next time.
- If your bars are too chewy or even brittle like in consistency, you have cooked the peanut mixture too long. Cook it for less time next time.
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