(Phenomenal) Bars

I want you to make homemade, healthy snacks for you and your friends, family. My goal here is to inspire you to give it a shot if you haven't, that's all. Try it and let me know how it goes, what you modified and more.

Background

My family and I always need a snack, something quick and convenient to grab on the go. We typically have some off-the-shelf nut bars, Clif bars, etc., but they are expensive and contain who knows what. I've always felt that if I could create a healthy, homemade protein/nut bar, it would have a significant impact on my family's overall eating habits.

This led me to experiment with creating homemade nut bars. I've gone through numerous iterations—baking them at times, using woodworking clamps, and trying other wacky, made-up techniques.

With some collaboration with my friend ChatGPT, I've honed in on a recipe I've now repeated many times and quite like. I wanted something reasonably high in fat, protein, and calories. I wasn't overly concerned about ingredient costs since I knew this would be much cheaper than off-the-shelf bars. I also wanted something that was almost completely shelf-stable, even though we can store them in the freezer.

Someone in my family deemed these "Phenomenal Bars," which is a name that has stuck. To this point, almost every person I've shared one with has asked for the recipe. Asking for a recipe is polite, but a few friends have already made them at home, which is a real endorsement!

My family now eats through a batch every two weeks. My batch size produces eight pounds of finished bars. Of course, you can cut this in half or quarter it to make a trial batch. ChatGPT is great for making quantity changes to recipes or other tweaks. You can paste this recipe in and ask it to adjust ingredient amounts to produce a specific amount of final product.

Some young people in my life are confused that I'm posting this online. "You're giving away your 'secret' bar recipe; you should patent it!" So maybe there's a lesson here about IP protection—what you should and shouldn't protect, and how there's more you can do with IP than simply hoard it.

I do have one request: if you make this recipe, let me know! How did they turn out? What modifications did you make? So far, the farthest place I've heard of them being made is Fredericton.

Ingredients

  • Dates, pitted: 700g
  • Maple Syrup: 350g
  • Natural Peanut Butter or Almond Butter: 240g
  • Raw Almonds (to be toasted): 550g
  • Walnuts or Pecans (to be toasted): 200g
  • Mixed Seeds (chia, flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds): 280g
  • Rolled Oats: 160g
  • Protein Powder: 120g
  • Vanilla Extract: 20ml
  • Cinnamon (optional): 5g
  • Salt: pinch
  • Virgin Coconut Oil, melted: 220g
  • Chocolate Chips(optional): 350g

Nuts prep

Spread the almonds and walnuts or pecans out on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, stirring halfway through. You also soak them which takes longer but I prefer roasting.

Once these are done in the oven, let them cool and then process them in batches in a food processor. I process them almost to a flour but you can leave them chunkier if you like.

For the flax, pumpkin or chia seeds, I simply bust those up a bit in a pestle and mortar.

Dates prep

While toasting the nuts, I put the dates into a bowl and cover them with hot water. I typically boil water and then let it sit for a bit so it's not boiling. Let them soak for 10 minutes, then drain and process them in the food processor until you have a smooth paste. My food processor is small so I have to do this in batches.

Melted prep

I rig up a makeshift double boiler and place the peanut butter, coconut oil, chocolate chips, maple syrup into it and place it on the stove to slowly melt it all down. Stir this occasionally.

Once this is almost fully melted, I add the date paste into it to warm and mix it in. At the very end, I also add in the vanilla.

Final Assembly

In a large bowl, I add all remaining ingredients as well as the toasted nut flour you made. At this point, all ingredients should either be in this dry bowl or in your wet mixture in your double boiler.

Mix all the dry ingredients well. Pour in the contents of the double boiler and mix, mix, mix. Once it's completely mixed and there's no dry pockets left, you're ready to mold.

I pour this mixture into baking dishes lined with parchment. Once in, I use a laddle to spread it around and flatten the top as best I can. These are then placed into a fridge for about 30 minutes. Once they are fully cooled to fridge temp, you're done! Remove them, release them from the pan, remove parchment, cut them up and get them into containers. We put ours into the freezer since you can almost eat them directly from the freezer.

Pictures

Nuts in an oven Blended nut flour Dates soaking Double boiler Dates blended Seeds mortaring Double boiler at work Bowl with nut flour Double boiler with date paste Wet and dry, premix Wet and dry, get mixing Mixing Into the pan Smooth it out Done The cut Packaging Packaged

Cities

If you've made a version of these, and your city isn't listed, let me know!.

The places I'm aware of these bars being made so far:

  • Guelph, ON
  • Fredericton, ON
  • LA, California
  • Stouffville, ON