Chocolate Espresso Bars with Dried Fruit

I love granola bars, I buy granola bars.

Starting today, I make granola bars.

It always pains me to buy them even on sale because the good ones are usually so expensive. Jim and I love Clif Bars but try to ration them because of how expensive they are.

Today, I was inspired by Grace to make granola bars.

I view this recipe as more of a ratio suggestion than a recipe because you could do anything with it.

I decided to make my first batch chocolate espresso bars and then added some chopped apricots and walnuts.

Some other flavour ideas:

~ Banana chip, Chocolate with Espresso

~ Carrot, Walnut with cinnamon and yogurt chips

~ Peanut butter, chocolate....(maybe some espresso in there too)

I doubled the recipe and used a 10 x 14 inch as well as an 8 x 10 baking dish to spread the mixture in because I wanted my bars to be really thin and look like a Clif bar. Mmmm.

Granola Bars

(adapted from whatscookingwithkids.com)

1 cup oats (quick cooking or old fashioned)

1 cup shredded wheat or weetabix cereal

1 cup walnuts

1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used apricot, fig and golden raisin)

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp espresso powder

2 large eggs

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup finely chopped good dark chocolate (or chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Light oil or coat an 8×11-inch baking dish and set aside.

Place the oats, weetabix, walnuts, dried fruit, cinnamon, espresso powder

and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped. .

Or chop fruit and crush cereal by hand and mix with other dry ingredients in a large bowl.

(The dried fruit should be the size of lentils.)

Whisk together the eggs, honey, and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended.

Add the oat mixture and chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan and flatten gently with the back of a spoon.

Bake about 18 minutes, or until the edgest turn golden brown.

Let cool completely in the pan before slicing into 12 bars.