No-Bake Granola Bars

So, I was tooling around foodgawker today and saw a picture of granola bars that looked interesting. I mean, they looked like granola bars, which are yummy, but I've never described them as interesting. The interesting part came when I saw the caption - no bake. That instantly made them interesting enough for me to click through to the post.

Upon reading the recipe, my first thought was "wow, those look good and easy!" Then my next thought was "Man, I bet I could make those right now!"

So you know what?

I did.

The first step was to melt together honey, butter and brown sugar.

While those melted and cooked together on the stove, I grabbed two heaping cups of granola. Apparently, while the version I was reading about in the blog post used a combination of quick-cooking oats and Rice Krispies, the original recipe (read: the recipe on which the person whose blog I was reading based her posted recipe) called for using prepared granola. Which I actually had. Remember the granola I made? I had some of that, so I decided that this would be a great use for it.


To the granola, I actually added a couple of hands-full of dried cranberries, too. Because, well, why not?

Once the mixture on the stove came to a boil and cooked for two minutes, I stirred in a bit of vanilla and was ready to coat my granola.


Stir well to make sure all of the granola gets coated, then simply press the mixture into a medium sized pan. Mine was about 12" x 8", which worked out perfectly. If you have a bigger pan, simply don't fill the pan all the way - push the mixture to one side and press it flat (about 3/4" thick).


And then came the hard part.

The waiting.

Which was only hard because this actually smelled really good. So good that little miss, head stuck in her book and not paying a darn bit of attention to what mommy was doing in the kitchen, suddenly looked up and asked "What is that delicious smell??"

Two hours of setting later, we cut.

And voila.

Easy, no-bake granola bars.

They were very gooey. Almost a bit too gooey, so I think next time I will use a little more than two cups of granola. Actually, next time I'll use something without nuts so that little man can have some too. Regardless, these were so quick and easy, and so absolutely delicious, that I will definitely keep some variation of them on hand as snacks as often as possible.

No-Bake Granola Bars

(lightly adapted from Lauren's Latest)

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup honey

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 heaping cups of prepared granola

about a half a cup (a couple small hands-full) dried cranberries

In a small saucepan, melt the butter, honey and brown sugar over medium-high heat. While this is melting, pour the granola into a large bowl and mix in the cranberries. When the mixture on the stove begins to bubble, reduce the heat and cook it for two more minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, add the vanilla (it will bubble up a bit!) and stir. Pour the hot syrup carefully over the granola mixture and mix well, making sure that everything is well moistened. Carefully pour the granola mixture into a lightly greased small jelly roll pan and press it out to be about 3/4 of an inch in thickness. Press it well so that everything will stick together well.

Allow the bars to cool for about two hours at room temperature before cutting and serving.

These can be stored at room temperature, wrapped in plastic wrap or parchment paper.

Enjoy!

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