May 06, 2018 This granola bar recipe totally satisfied my craving for the crunchy bars I loved in my lunch box. Not the chewy, blonde granola bars that I usually make like my Chewy Cherry Chocolate Granola Bars or my Chocolate Pistachio & Cranberry Granola Bars. I’m talking deeply toasted, quickly-entering-oatmeal-cookie-territory ones. We ate the whole batch in under a day, which almost never happens with anything in our home since I bake so much that it’s not a particular novelty. We broke the bars into large shards over our yogurt in the morning and it was delicious. I mean, chunks are the best part of granola right? This was 100% chunks. Because they’re crunchy, I’d say they’d last about 2 weeks in a tightly sealed container (or for months if you stash them in the freezer). You could individually wrap the bars in parchment paper in advance and just pop them into lunch boxes (straight from frozen is fine). They also happen to be vegan, as long as you choose vegan dark chocolate. I love using coconut oil in my granola and granola bars. It gives a really great texture. The secret to homemade granola bars (or just regular granola) that hold together, rather than succumbing to a crumbly mess at the lightest pressure of a knife, is to pulse some of the oats to a flour first. This gives the mixture structure as it bakes. You could swap in an alternative flour rather than grinding your own oatmeal, if you like. Hope you all are doing well! I’m off to Toronto next week on some exciting business – follow along on Instagram for details. I feel like I haven’t had many stories for you lately. We’ve just been exploring our new neighbourhood and settling in to new routines and are recovering from another round of flu (will it ever END?). I had a high school friend visiting last week, so she and I were visiting lots of local beaches and just doing life the slow way (and with plenty of rosé on the patio). We saw six seals in one afternoon. So magical. The kids have been working hard with me on a backyard container vegetable garden – I’ll share more on that soon. XO PS – check out one of my most popular granola bar recipes while you’re at it, too – Super-Tasty, Very Easy Healthy Granola Bars
