Peanut Butter and Banana Granola Bars

Road trip time! Tom, Christopher (my brother) and I are off to Atlanta tomorrow, a whopping 16 hour drive from Toronto to my family in Sandy Springs, which we are attemptingto do in one day. We have done it before ... once. And this time we have a few obstacles in our way - traffic, construction, the border (ugh), freezing rain and you know, desire to sleep. We'll see what happens. Safety first! 

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches are an after-school classic, one that many elementary school students love almost as much as I do! This granola bar reincarnation is gooey, chewy, sweetened with a little honey, and easy to take on the run. Wrapped in wax paper, they are perfectly portable and filled with energy and protein rich ingredients that will keep you going. I'm hoping these granola bars will keep us from relying too much on McDonald's Crispy Chicken combos (guilty), and help us survive the long stretches of road where the population density is in the single digits, without starving. 

As with many simple recipes, the balance of the ingredients is really important. The combination of banana puree, nut butter and sweetener is vital to the texture of the bars, believe me, I went through quite a few variations that produced complete failures! One was so hard I came close to losing a tooth, another basically disintegrated as soon a you bit into it, and the last one was almost sickly sweet. If, however, you wanted to replace some of the dry ingredients, that shouldn't be a problem as long as you make sure you have the same volume of combined dry ingredients. 

Anyhow, I better get packing, I'm running out of time!

Peanut Butter and Banana Granola Bars

Kitchen Soundtrack: Olympic Men's Hockey Semi-Final (US vs. Canada, Yikes!)

Makes 16 bars

Ingredients:

• 15g (1 tbsp) butter
• 180g (1½ cups) rolled oats
• 100g (¾ cup) peanuts
• 2 tbsp flax seeds, 
• 100g (1½ cups) unsweetened* banana chips, chopped
• 90g (2 cups) organic** corn flakes or crispy rice cereal 95 or 2 cups
• 170g (½ cup) honey
• 40g (2 tbsp) molasses
• 1 medium banana, pureed (a frozen banana is totally fine!)
• 150g (½ cup) unsalted natural peanut butter
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla

* These can get too sweet very quickly, so I definitely recommend that you use unsweetened ingredients.

**If using cornflakes they have to be organic, otherwise the texture will be too dense.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2.  a 9x9 inch pan with butter, line the bottom and up two sides with parchment paper.
3. Toast the oats in the oven until slightly golden, about 7 minutes.
4. Crush the banana chips into smaller pieces (about 1cm or 1/2 an inch) using a food processor, or alternatively, by putting them in a ziplock bag and running a rolling pin over them. 
5. Mix peanuts, banana chips, cereal, flax seeds and toasted oats in a large bowl.
6. In a small pot, heat the honey, molasses and salt over medium heat until boiling, then slightly thickened (approximately 4 minutes), stirring frequently. Watch mixture carefully - it can (and will) boil over (oops...).
7. Stir the banana and peanut butter into the honey mixture, heat to a boil again and allow to cook, stirring constantly for another 4 minutes. It will be quite thick and dark. Cool slightly.
8. Pour liquid mixture over dry mixture, stir until evenly combined. Use a greased piece of parchment to press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan. Allow to cool completely.
9. Lift out of the pan and using a greased knife, cut into squares (cut each side into 4, giving you 16 squares). These are great right from the get-go, but I think they get even better after sitting for day! And they keep for up to 7 days wrapped individually in parchment paper.

Note: To make these vegan, coat the pan in a vegan butter substitute or coconut oil and replace the honey with maple syrup.