As I have written before we have made Granola Bars at home a few times. In fact I love them so much that I made it my misson one month to make them every weekend to try and perfect as recipe.
Then my wife found this recipe for Cashew Coconut bars and I was a little apprehensive. No Granola? How could this work? And also baked, and with not much in the way of wet ingredients I had no idea how these would hold together.
But they do. And I was intrigued to try them…
So I made these Cashew Coconut Snack bars. Last week in fact and everyone around the house loved them so much in a small batch in a 8×8 pan that I decided to double the recipe and use a 9 x 13 inch pan for this batch that I made today.
So here is the recipe that I used today (doubled so no one has to do the math)
Cashew Coconut Snack Bar Recipe
Ingredients
To the left you can see how these look when mixed
- 2/3 Cup of Honey
- 1/2 Cup finely ground Almonds (slivered would work instead if you want)
- 2 Tablespoons Almond Butter
- 1 1/2 Cups of shredded Unsweetened Coconut
- 1 Cup Dried Cranberries
- 2 Tablespoons Chia Seeds
- 2 2/3 Cups Unsalted Cashews ground roughly
Directions
- Ok, first of all start up the oven and preheat to 300 degrees. I know this is not very hot but nuts can be delicate and burn at a higher temperature.
- Mix the first four ingredients together; honey, almonds, almond butter, and coconut. You will find that this forms a kind of thick paste
- Now you can add the cranberries and chia seeds, this will thicken everything up quite a bit
- Finally add in all the ground cashews. I made sure that they were pretty big still to add a bit of that soft cashew crunch. This will really thicken up this batter and it will stick together but not terribly well, which is fine
- Next put this in a 9×13 inch pan that is lined with parchment paper, this will stop it from sticking to the pan
- Now you need to flatten the mixture hard. As with my Granola Bars, I found that putting a piece of parchment paper on top helps. I can then use my hands to flatten the mix, and then pushing the mix down very hard and flat with an 8×8 inch pan on top I can really flatten it
- Put the pan in the oven uncovered for 20 minutes, let cool on the stove for a bit after, and then put in the fridge to harden for an hour or so. I think that the cooking really makes these stick together and the fridge hardens them up
This will give you, I think 16 little bars 4 wide and 4 long cut out of the pan
Try this out and see how you liked it. I thought it was fantastic!