Thick & Chewy Almond Butter Granola Bars

The deep dish version of a granola bar has arrived…

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

…and it’s bedazzled with peanut butter cups!  As one of my commenters said the other day, “what a great time to be alive!”

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

It’s really faulty advertising to be calling these granola bars because they’re more like thick & chewy oatmeal cookies…with chia seeds.  They’re my favorite thing.  The granola bar part…not the chia seed part.  I mean, chia seeds are okay, but they’re not really something that can be your favorite thing.

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

These bars are another one of those recipes that you could eat for breakfast or a snack or dessert.  Yesterday I had one for a mid-morning snack then for a mid-afternoon post workout snack and then for dessert as I was typing up this post.  Clearly it was a great day.  And then my dog ate my shoe.  Good thing she’s still the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  And there has never been a better cuddler even if she feels like a furnace curled up next to me at night.  Too hot.

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat     thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

Moving on.

When Andrew got home from work yesterday he saw the pan of these across the room and asked “Is that lasagna?” To which I said, “No.  It’s not lasagna.  It’s oatmeal.”  End of the story.

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

We should note that this recipe is unique for me because it…doesn’t have bananas!  I feel like all my baked goods have bananas in them.  And honestly I would’ve put bananas in this but we only had one banana left and I really wanted it for breakfast the next morning and I didn’t want to have to go to the grocery store because I’d already made an emergency grocery store trip the day before for sparkling water.  I just had to have it.  I want to invest in one of those sodastream things.  Do you have one? Tell me.  I go through boatloads of sparkling water + juice.

Sooo if you want to have the best snack of your life (and I don’t say that lightly) you should make these.  I think maybe sometime soonish I’ll make these in cookie form and see how they turn out.  And then turn them into sandwich cookies perhaps.  That could be good.  I’ll keep you posted.

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

Thick & Chewy Almond Butter Granola Bars

Deep dish oatmeal granola bars bedazzled with peanut butter cups.

Yield: 12-16 bars

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 24

Total Time: 34 minutes

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats (spooned into a measuring cup)

1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (spooned into a measuring cup and leveled off)

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons chia seed (optional)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup Justin's almond butter

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

 1 tablespoon vanilla

4-6 Justin's peanut butter cups (I used dark chocolate & white chocolate)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.  Grease a 8x8" baking dish.  Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine oats, whole wheat pastry flour, sugar, chia seeds, baking soda and salt.  Add in almond butter, honey, milk, coconut oil and vanilla.  Mix until a dough forms. Press dough into the greased baking dish.  Chop Justin's peanut butter cups into quarters and press into dough.  Bake for 24 minutes.  Allow to cool before slicing.  Or don't.

If you want the bars chewy, only bake them 24 minutes and then allow them to cool completely.  They will seem a tad under baked at 24 minutes, but let them cool! I promise, you're gonna love it.  If you take them out of the pan before they cool completely they will come out looking like the below picture...slightly falling apart but still oh so chewy.

thick & chewy almond butter granola bars \\ immaEATthat

{Disclaimer: I did receive free samples of peanut butter cups & almond butter from Justin’s.  However, I was not compensated for my time.}