Use classic birthday cake flavors and real food ingredients to make healthy and *fun!* cake batter granola bars!
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Sweet summer!
We are halfway through the summer break and just loving it! With a good mix of scheduled activities and lazy beach days, it is literally just what the doctor ordered after a long school year!
A new snack for all seasons!
We used these granola bars for a beach day this week, but, I’m also well aware of how quickly the school year creeps up…and the dreaded lunchboxes! While I’m absolutely protesting all the back-to-school ads right now (It’s July – how rude!), I really think having a fun granola bar snack will be great for back to school too. We replenished our naturally dyed sprinkle supply with 2 spring birthdays a couple of months ago, and I thought it would be fun to make a cake batter-inspired snack with them!
Making granola bars from scratch sounds…fussy…
My thoughts exactly! And lucky for you, I’m all about taking what might seem like a fussy kitchen project and making it manageable for busy moms. We’re talking a one bowl prep that should take less than 10 minutes. The granola bars are stored in the pantry just like regular granola bars, so the kids can grab and go just like store-bought!
Swaps & Switches
I was super intentional about including nutrient variety, while also making these bars taste and look good. Both matter! If you need to make some swaps, these ideas should help:
- Millet is a fantastic gluten free grain packed with fiber, B vitamins, and antioxidants! It is light, crispy texture when baked! The millet can be swapped for hemp hearts, more oats, or more coconut shreds to change things up based on what you have in the house, though. Flax seeds would work too but will change the color a bit.
- If you can’t have coconut, or don’t like the taste, you can swap the coconut shreds for more oats, and the coconut oil for butter if you can have dairy, or avocado oil. I don’t taste the coconut in these bars, but I know some might!
- If you are at a nut free school, swap the almond flour ground up seeds of any kind, or more hemp hearts, hulled millet, or flax seeds.
The Method :: The granola bar mixture
One bowl is all you’ll need! Mix the dry ingredients, then pour in the melted coconut oil and honey to bring it together. It truly takes minutes!
Preparing the baking pan
You use 2 parchment paper-lined square cake pans for your granola bars. OR, my favorite granola bar hack…granola bar baking pans! If you end up loving making granola bars, these super affordable granola bar pans just make the process even quicker. The bars pop right out after baking, without having to deal with cutting. Press the granola mixture into your baking pans, and bake them off. Be sure to let the granola bars COMPLETELY COOL before handling them to cut or pop them out of the granola bar pan.
Wait! Tell me about those sprinkles!
The naturally dyed sprinkle world has really come a long way! You can find naturally dyed sprinkles in just about every shape, too! From naturally dyed jimmies (pictured in this post) to naturally dyed nonpareils, naturally dyed star sprinkles, and fun naturally dyed confetti too!
Do I have to use the sprinkles?
You can leave the sprinkles out, and the granola bars will still taste like cake batter. The flavor comes from the almond and vanilla extracts! (If you have toddlers at home, honestly, I’d skip it. They don’t know any differently at that age, and I don’t like training the expectation that sprinkles come on everything for little ones who aren’t developmentally able to reason yet.)
How to store your cake batter granola bars
Once your granola bars cool, you can stack them up in an airtight container and store them in the pantry for up to 4 months. If you like to keep them wrapped individually, here are some great ideas.
Naturally Dyed Funfetti Granola Bars!
Ingredients
- 4 cups oats
- ¾ cup hulled millet
- ½ cup almond flour
- 1/3 cup shredded coconut
- ¾ cup naturally dyed sprinkles of choice
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- ½ cup honey
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees. If you plan to use granola bar molds, place them on a baking sheet. If you are going to use a baking pan, you can line two 8×8 or 9×9 baking pans with unbleached parchment paper so the paper hangs off the sides (This helps pull them out of the pan to cut them easier later).
- Put the oats, millet, almond flour, shredded coconut, sprinkles, sea salt, and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine.
- Melt the coconut oil in a small sauce pan until it is liquid, and then add the honey to melt. Mix the melted liquid ingredients along with the vanilla and almond extracts completely into the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl.
- Press the granola bar mixture into your granola bar molds, or into your baking pan. I use the back of a spoon to press them into a granola bar mold. When I make granola bars in a baking pan, I use the bottom of a measuring cup to press the mixture in.
- Bake the granola bars at 325 degrees until golden on the top. For these small granola bar molds, it takes 15 minutes. For these larger granola bar molds, it takes 25 minutes. The baking pans should take between 25-30 minutes.
- Let the granola bars COOL COMPLETELY before taking them out. You'll be able to pop the granola bars out of the molds. If you are using a baking pan, pull the parchment paper up to take the granola bars out of the pan, and then cut them with a long sharp knife. You can pop the pans in the fridge to help the cooling process along if you need to cut them quicker.
Notes
- Millet is a fantastic gluten free grain packed with fiber, B vitamins, and antioxidants! It is light, crispy texture when baked! The millet can be swapped for hemp hearts, more oats, or more coconut shreds to change things up based on what you have in the house, though. Flax seeds would work too but will change the color a bit.
- If you can’t have coconut, or don’t like the taste, you can swap the coconut shreds for more oats, and the coconut oil for butter if you can have dairy, or avocado oil. I don’t taste the coconut in these bars, but I know some might!
- If you are at a nut free school, swap the almond flour ground up seeds of any kind, or more hemp hearts, hulled millet, or flax seeds.
