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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Homemade Clif Bars

I love a good Clif bar when I'm training intensely and on-the-go. They're a great snack to keep with you for an emergency or to tie you over until dinnertime. However, they can be expensive, especially if you buy them one at a time. They also have some chemicals in them which I prefer to keep out of my body. As a result, I've been experimenting with trying to make my own clif bars. I've tried some which required baking and others that didn't stick together well. I decided I liked the texture of the unbaked ones with the wholesomeness of the baked ones so I combined several ideas I have found and came up with the following recipe. I hope you find them to be as delicious as I did. Feel free to experiment with the recipe and add your own favorites to the mix. Let me know if you come up with any interesting twists.

Homemade Clif Bars

1 cup puffed brown rice cereal
1 cup oats
2 TBS ground flaxseed
¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ chopped nuts or seeds—I used pumpkin seed but you can use walnuts, almonds, or a mixture, etc.
¼ cup chopped pretzel pieces
¼ cup unfiltered honey
¼ cup molasses
2 TBS dark brown sugar
½ cup natural peanut butter or any nut butter
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine the rice cereal, oats, flaxseed meal, flour, nuts, pretzels, and cinnamon, in a large bowl. Be sure there's room to mix the sauce in.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring the honey, molasses and brown sugar to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and vanilla until blended.

Pour nut butter mixture over cereal mixture and stir…Mixture will be stiff. Press mixture firmly into a lightly greased 8-inch square pan, like you're making rice crispy treats. Cool and cut into bars.

I found it easiest to cut once down the middle and then do several thin slices horizontally through the middle slice to create shapes like granola bars. Enjoy! (I like to keep mine in the fridge too. They're extra good cold.)

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