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I adapted this recipe from the lovely blogger, Katie, over at Figgy and Sprout. Katie has a beautiful website with mouthwatering recipes.
These bars aren’t your traditional flaky and hard energy bars. They are soft, chewy, and moist with crunchy surprises from the chia seeds and nuts.
Ingredients:
Dry:
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup almonds
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/3 cup hemp seeds
1/4 cup dates, pitted and chopped (about 5 or 6 whole dates)
1/4 cup vegan chocolate chips or raw cacao nibs
Wet:
1/4-1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2-1 tbsp grated ginger
Stir-ins:
1/2 cup almond flour
3 tbsp raw cacao powder
3 tbsp chia seeds
2 tbsp maca powder
2 scoops organic hemp protein powder (optional)
Directions:
1. Combine all dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse minimally until all is combined. Don’t over process it, you want there to be chunks of nuts and dried fruit. Remove from processor and set aside in a medium bowl. Should look like this:
2. Add wet ingredients into food processor or blender and mix until all is combined.
3. Pour wet mixture over dry and fuse.
4. Incorporate all the stir-ins into mixture until all is combined.
5. Spread mixture evenly with preferred thickness into a dish or baking pan and place into fridge.
6. Once hardened, cut into desired shapes and store in an air tight container in the fridge.
Keep in mind that the texture hardens up quite lovely after being situated in the fridge for a few hours.
Customizations: (endless possibilites!)
I will be using sprouted buckwheat as well as an addition of dried apricots, goji berries, and who knows what else next time. These kinda remind me of Probars!
-Use any sort of nuts you’d like
- Cashews, brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pistachios, peanuts, etc.
-Add in dried various dried fruit to sub for the dates/coconut flakes or simply as additional treasures
- golden raisins, goji berries, cranberries, blueberries, apricots, pineapple, banana, cherries, apple, figs, etc.
-Use yacon syrup, brown rice syrup, honey, or any other liquid sweetener or even whole dates instead of maple syrup
-Use hempseed oil, flaxseed oil, or any mild-tasting oil in place of coconut oil
-Sub sprouted buckwheat or other gluten-free oats for the almond flour
-Leave out/sub the maca, cacao, protein powder, chia seeds
- Add in flaxseeds, mesquite powder, camu camu powder, any plant-based protein powder, wheat grass powder, etc.
-Any sort of spices or flavorings in place of ginger
- cinnamon, cloves, lavender, nutmeg, coffee, almond extract, orange extract, peppermint extract, lemon zest
Swell flavor combos:
- Mint Chocolate Chip: peppermint extract or fresh mint leaves, raw cacao powder, nibs, or chocolate chips
- Mocha Chocolate Chip: coffee extract, raw cacao, chocolate chips
- Lemon Cranberry: dried cranberries, lemon zest
- Peanut Butter and Jelly: peanuts, dried strawberries/raspberries/raisins
- Lemon Lavender: dried lavender, lemon zest
- Chocolate Orange: raw cacao, orange zest
- Tropical Delight: coconut flakes, dried pineapple, dried mango, lemon/lime zest
- Orange Creamsicle: orange zest, vanilla
- Spicy Chocolate: cayenne pepper, raw cacao, cinnamon
What’s your favorite energy bar flavor?
WOW these look and sound amazing!
Thanks Heather! They contain almost every bit of my favorite superfoods, super yum :)
These look incredible! Definitely my kind of energy bars, they’re packed with so much good stuff! Love!
Appreciate that Heidi! They definitely have a variety of wonderful ingredients. I love love love eating things of that nature.
Gosh, I love all your raw bars recipes! But I think these bars are my favorite ones, there is so much goodness in them, chia seeds, hemp protein & seeds, maca(…) some of my all time favorite ingredients!
Awe thanks Márcia! I have to agree, chia and hemp are among my favorite delectable health wonders of all time. Adding in raw cacao and maca, man am I sold…
Just wondering if they have to be stored in the fridge?
after the initial hardening.
And what would be the expiry date. Thank you
Hello Justyna! Yes these should be stored in the fridge. Honestly I eat all my creations within a few days so I haven’t experimented, but there’s nothing really in here (to my knowledge) that would be fairly susceptible to rancidity if properly kept in the fridge…I’d say a week or two for optimum freshness.
Enjoy!
is there any way that i can reduce the fat content in these???
Hey Denise, definitely.
Sub some dried fruit for the coconut flakes
Cereal for some of the nuts
Try leaving out the coconut oil. If you need more wet ingredients, add more liquid sweetener or even dates.
You may even be able to leave out the almond flour, but you’d want to decrease the liquid content a little (or simply use a dry sweetener, such as coconut palm sugar) and perhaps increase dates for sweetness/texture. Increasing dates/decreasing maple syrup will give you a sturdier texture.
You can’t really go wrong with these, feel free to use any ingredients you’d like!
Let me know if you have any more inquiries, glad to assist.
I can’t wait to try your recipe. I’ve noticed some other recipes call for dehydrating the bars. Do you think your recipe would still be ok dehydrated? Thanks so much.
Woooo!! I’ve never dehydrated these, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! It would prob. taste really good now that I think about it. I hope you enjoy ’em. You’ll have to let me know how the dehydrated final product turns out, I am curious.
How do these do if they’re not refrigerated? I travel by motorcycle and am looking for a healthy alternative to store bought granola bars, which will keep ok unrefrigerated.
Hey Grant, I’m not sure how hot it gets when you’re traveling but I wouldn’t recommend these because coconut oil has a melting point of about 76 degrees Fahrenheit (24-25 C). Perhaps you could make these without coconut oil, but I haven’t experimented with that yet.
I’d recommend these mocha energy bars. They have held up well during long days on campus. I’d recommend leaving out the chocolate chips depending on the weather since those have a higher tendency to melt, your call. If you’re not a fan of mocha, then I have a few other flavors as well in my recipes page or you can just follow the energy bar foundation of nuts, dates, and your preferred flavor. Hope this helps, let me know if I can be of any more assistance.