DIY Energy Bars - vol. 1

Vegan

This has been a revolution around here!

In short, if you have a food processor... go make yourself some energy bars. There's hardly any reason to buy them except convenience. You can customize them exactly as you like, keep only the good-for-you ingredients and save $$. And there are sooooo many recipes and types out there... Wild! So here begins my Energy Bar journey. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do all that whizzing and taste-testing...

Imperative for successful bars:
Most of them don't need any baking and are held together by the sticky combination of something like a nut butter and a liquid sweetener, or ground up dried fruit, or a combination thereof. Follow these steps to make sure they stick together:

1) If your dried fruit is not moist, briefly soak it in a little hot water to plump it up

2) Once your mix is in the pan it'll be setting in, PRESS, PRESS, PRESS it down. It will be sandwiched between plastic wrap or parchment paper, so use your hands, a rolling pin, the bottom of a glass- whatever it takes! It must be compact.

Here is the first round-up of recipes I've tried that I will make again.

1. Almond Coconut Energy Bars

based on Minimalist Baker's Healthy 5-Ingredient Granola Bars

These are the closest to a successful commercial granola bar that I've tried so far. They have a pleasant crunch, are sweet but get balanced out by the nuts and oats and are easy enough to make, though do require a bit of time with the toasting, assembly and all that dish-washing after.


2. Soft Banana Oat Bars

based on Adventures of Our Family's Banana Oat Bars

This is probably the healthiest recipe of the bunch and in some of my friends' words "tastes like it" haha... However, the health nuts loved them. They are soft and with the extra banana I put in held in no problem - these do require baking. If you want something sweeter, add more dried fruit or some sort of sweetener - a glug of maple syrup or maybe sprinkle on some brown sugar?


3. Lemony Oat Bars

based on The Vegan 8's No-Bake Lemon Tea Oat Bars

In the world of endless snakc bar recipes, these are really unique! I loved the fresh lemon flavor! My German lemon tea was kind of strong and a bit strange, so I only used 5 tea bags instead of the 12. Next: try with my fave lemon tea of all time: Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger and make into flat bars in a shallow pan (rather than thick ones in a loaf pan, as per recipe).


4. Green Tea and Goji Berry

based on Vegan Crunk's Matcha Green Tea Almond Bars

Also very unique, delicious and easy-peasy! My ingredients were:
- dates, prunes and (very soft) goji berries, adding up to 1.5 cups
- 1/2 cup ground flax
- 1/3 cup mix of nuts and pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup matcha powder (I think this can be reduced by as much as half the amount - it's quite strong, even for me who adores green tea flavor and will make the bars less crumbly)

Another take: dried figs and prunes, toasted almonds, ground flax and chia, reduced green tea


5. Carrot Cake Bites

based on My Whole Food Life's Carrot Cake Larabar Bites

My mixture was kinda dry and giving my food processor trouble, so I added coconut water... a little too liberally. I ended up with pumpkin-pie-filling texture and even ground up oats could not save the day. So, I rolled these into sticky balls and they are delicious, if not exactly portable ;)


6. Crumbly Granola 

before-baking-photo: based on Real Healthy's Granola Bars 

Haha... so, these did not stick together whatsoever! I mean, in clumps, yes, so Rich and I devoured the resulting granola with a spoon because it was so damn yummy! I think the problem was the mixture was too liquidy - next time try omitting the coconut oil or reducing to a bare minimum, especially since I find it burns very easily. These also require baking.


7. Gingery Pumpkin Seed Chews

oops forgot to take a photo! picture and recipe both from Florida Coastal Cooking's Gingery Pepita Energy Bars

This recipe wins hands-down for super-fast no-mess. I think I was done in ~10 minutes. Very yummy! Now I need to source some more crystallized ginger! - or make it ;)

Another take: walnuts and prunes and candied orange peel, coated in hemp nuts. YEAH!