oat and raisin bars - a recipe

School starts back this week.  Along with everything else, that means lunchboxes, everyday.  The job again, is to find a new yummy snack bar (muesli or granola depending on where you are reading this) recipe for my kids lunch boxes.

I found several recipes on Pinterest for chewy granola bars.  The recipes were all basically the same.  Cooking up a light toffee with butter and honey and then mixing in the oats and other flavourings.  I tried one of these bars and thought it was a great success.  The kids had some and gave an entirely different verdict.  Epic fail!  The granola was too crunchy and the bar was too soft and fell apart too easily.  Back to the drawing board and on to my recipe.

I used the (Australian) anzac biscuit recipe as a starting point and went from there.  Switched honey for the golden syrup and adding puffed rice and raisins.  This is what I ended up with.

A firm but not crunchy bar, packed full of seeds and fruit.  I love them.  And the kids do too.

So here is the recipe for my oat and raisin bars.



Oat and Raisin Bars

250g butter
4Tb honey (to double use 1/3 cup)
1c shreaded coconut
2/3c raw sugar
1c raisins
1c raw pepitas
3c puffed rice
2c rolled oats
1 1/2c SR flour

Melt butter and honey in large bowl. 
Add remaining ingredients in order. 
Stir until well combined. 
Press into a well greased large baking dish with straight sides.
Bake 180degC until golden and firm, about 20min.
Cool in dish 15min.
Turn out and cut into bars or squares.
Store in an airtight container.


By my rough calculations, the batch works out to be around $10 for 18 good sized bars or 36 squares. That is about 55c per bar or 25c per square.  Better than the bought bars for sure!


If you try them, let me know what you think!

Linking to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways and Thirty Handmade Days. and Fat Tuesday