Epicure granola bars with home made Apple Pie spice

Most granola bars from the store are really sweet, often covered in chocolate, just not appropriate for breakfast - or so says SO. To fix this, I'll make some bars using an Epicure recipe and this Epicure "Perfect Petites" silicon baking mold. By the way, I don't sell or necessarily endorse Epicure or their products. We have a friend who likes to sell us this stuff, so we occasionally buy. Some of their spice blends are decent, and there are no preservatives and all that. Free range and grain fed. Anyhoo.

Epicure granola bars with home made apple pie spice

First, the bad.  These molds are really small. They are probably better suited to fancy little hors d'oeuvres than to granola bars - they hold around 2 Tb of volume. Then again, you could just eat two or three. OK that's not that bad.   The good - the silicon mold is really easy to scrape the filling into, easy to pop the cooked bars out, and easy to clean.

The recipe I'm copying here so I don't lose it - it turns out to be a pretty basic recipe which not only is the perfect balance of dry/moist, but is infinitely adaptable. You could add pretty much any kind of nut or seed, different cereals, and different sweeteners.

Next Time: try different combos of seeds and nuts

Me: 8/10
SO: 8/10
SSO: n/a

Epicure granola bars with home made Apple Pie spice

Ingredients

• 1½ C (375ml) puffed rice cereal
• 1½ C (375ml) rolled oats
• ½ C (125 ml) dried raisins
• ½ C (125 ml) raw pumpkin seeds
• 1 tsp (5 ml) Apple Pie Spice (see below)
• ½ C (125 ml) honey
• ¼ C (60 ml) vegetable oil
• 3 Tbsp (45ml) nut butter
• 1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla

Method

1.  Heat oven to 325°F.
2. Place the Epicure Perfect Petites mold on a Baking Sheet.
3. Place first five ingredients in a food processor.
4. Melt remaining ingredients in microwave for 50 seconds on HIGH. Drizzle into food processor.
5. Pulse mixture until all ingredients are just blended.
6. Divide mixture evenly between sections of the mold. Press in lightly. Bake for 15–20 minutes.
7. When cool to the touch, flip mold onto Baking Sheet and twist to pop out granola bars.

Home Made Apple Spice Mix

Ingredients

• 4 parts cinnamon
• 2 parts nutmeg
• 1 part each of cardamon and allspice
• 1/2 part each of cloves and ginger

Method

1. Mix it all up really well, put in a spice jar and label.