Candied Apple Cinnamon Granola Bar Recipe - Gwen's Nest (2024)

FAQs

How do you bind granola bars together? ›

Honey or maple syrup

These natural sweeteners also help bind the bars together, and make these bars deliciously sweet (though not too sweet).

Honey – Along with the nut butter, it helps all these ingredients stick together! I love its warm amber flavor in this recipe.

While the oats and nuts bake, you can make the sticky glue that holds our bars together. You'll melt butter, honey, and brown sugar in a saucepan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Mix this sticky mixture with the toasted oats and nuts. Allow everything to cool, and then toss in dried fruit and chocolate chips.

to not go overboard with your mix-ins otherwise your bars will fall apart (always happens to me..). that if your mixture seems too dry to add a bit of water (start with just 1 tsp) to get a stickier consistency. that if your mixture seems too wet to add more oats/oat flour/shredded coconut/or other dry ingredient.

Honey. Sweetens the granola bars and helps bind the dry ingredients together.

Nut butter is a super flavorful fat that serves multiple purposes in granola. It acts as a binding agent—along with additional coconut oil and whatever natural sweetener I've chosen—helping to pull the dry ingredients together into a wet, sticky mass for baking.

Clumpy Granola Method: Add Whole Wheat and Almond Flour

First, it adds a combo of whole wheat flour and almond flour (or almond meal), which act as a binder to hold the oat mixture together. Second is the bakeware. This recipe opts for a 9×13-inch baking pan instead of the standard rimmed sheet pan.

Add an egg white.

The whites act as a kind of glue that binds the ingredients together. To ensure that the egg whites coat all the ingredients, I beat them with a whisk until foamy and increased in volume, which makes it much easier to fold into the granola.

They save well (wrap and freeze them for up to two months), are more affordable than store-bought bars, and don't contain the long list of unpronounceable ingredients. Plus, your kitchen will smell like a bakery while these granola bars bake. Ahhhh.

Make sure that whichever granola recipe you use, it calls for some liquid, typically oil of some kind (I recommend olive oil for a subtle earthy, floral flavor, or melted unrefined coconut oil for subtly coconutty flavor). The liquid will help the chia seeds to gel, ensuring the granola sticks together.

Why is glycerin in granola bars? ›

Glycerin helps preserve moisture, prevents sugar crystallization, and adds bulk, smoothness, softness, sweetness, and texture to a range of foods and beverages. It gives the final product its smooth, thick texture.

If your granola bars are falling apart or seem too crumbly, here are a few tips. Make sure you use honey or another sticky sweetener such as maple syrup in the liquid part of the recipe; this recipe calls for honey. This will help bind together the ingredients and keep that signature bar shape.

Often touted for their whole grain goodness, most granola bars are sticky-sweet junk food in disguise. Don't let a few oats fool you — especially when you also see marshmallows and chocolate chips. Instead: If granola bars are a must-have, choose one with 6 grams of sugar or less per bar, and hopefully some fibre.

Possible downsides

Granola bars are often considered a healthy snack, but despite these marketing claims, many are loaded with added sugar, calories, and artificial ingredients. For example, Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Harvest granola bars can contain up to 15 grams of sugar per serving — mostly from added sugar.

I aim to let it hit room temperature, whatever that may be; the real point is to give it ample time to shed excess heat and steam. This should take about 45 minutes; if left out indefinitely, the granola can turn sticky or soft, so do try to put it away as soon after cooling as you can.

Clumpy Granola Method: Add Chickpea Flour

This no-stir approach calls for spreading the granola in an even layer on the baking sheet so it will naturally clump together as it bakes.

Maple Syrup: Pure maple syrup gives these clusters the most delicious flavor, and it's an unrefined sweetener. It also helps the granola stick together, cluster-style.

I like to wrap the bars individually first with waxed paper or parchment paper, then store in large, labeled ziploc bags so I know which variety of granola bar I'm getting. They freeze well for up to 2 months.

Get as clumpy as you like.

First, press the granola into an even layer before you put it in the oven. Then, stir it only once halfway through cooking. For really good clumps, press down on the finished granola before it cools and avoid jostling it on the pan until cooled completely.