Apple Peanut Butter Snack Bars

As you may recall, I’ve been trying to eat a lot healthier lately. I’ve ditched some of my traditional snacks for pistachios and apples. I found a pin for Apple Peanut Butter Snack bars that sounded fantastic. It is made of many of my favorite foods and sounded like something that would last more than a day or two.

Recipe (Courtesy of HappyHealthyMama.com)

Apple Peanut Butter Snack Bars

Makes 9-16 bars, depending on what size you cut them

These gluten-free snack bars are made with wholesome ingredients and are great for after-school snacking or can be a healthy lunch box treat.  To make them nut-free, simply use sunflower seed butter in place of the peanut butter.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup shredded apple (one medium apple)

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup honey

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9×9 baking dish and set aside.

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well.  Transfer the mixture to the baking dish and use the back of a wooden spoon or a spatula to press it down evenly.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until the edges are just barely browned.  Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

Now, part of this recipe was new for me. I’m still learning to cook, so when it said “shredded apple” I had to double check with my mom what it meant. I would have grabbed the cheese shredder, but the apple next to it and start shredding. DON’T DO THAT!!! You need to peel the apple peel first. I would assume you could use a potato peeler, but my mom showed me how to do it with a knife. She said that this will work best because it will just get the peel off as opposed to large pieces of the apple.

Thinly cut off the peel of the apple.

Once the apple was peeled I shredded the apple. I suggest holding the apple upright to shred it. Rotate the apple evenly. This way you will get the majority of the apple and have only the core left.

Use a grater to shred the apple. I suggest holding the apple upright to get the most off the apple. That will also prevent you from hitting the core of the apple too early.

Side note: I used a Gala apple. They are usually reasonably priced and taste pretty good.

Shredded Apple in a bowl.

Measure out two cups rolled oats.

Once that was shredded, I mixed all the ingredients together in a large bowl.

Mix al the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

I sprayed the inside of an 8×8 baking dish (we didn’t have a 9×9 sized one) and poured the mixture into it. Make sure you flatten down the top of the mixture so it’s even.

Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Spread the Mixture evenly in a baking dish.

Place the mixture in the oven and let it cook. I put mine in for 20 minutes and it came out perfectly. The edges should be lightly brown. I would suggest you really watch it if you’re worried about it not cooking correctly in your oven. Overcooking this could really ruin it.

Baked Apple Peanut Butter Snack Bars

We were cooking this in conjunction with breakfast so I left this to cool while we cooked some bacon and eggs. By the time breakfast was ready the bars had cooled enough to cut. We cut them into 4×4 sections. That way we would have more pieces and the pieces wouldn’t be too big if they were overly rich.

They were fantastic! To put it in perspective: my dad isn’t a big sweets person and he grabbed a second piece without hesitation. They were still slightly warm, sweet, but not overly sweet. They were made of completely healthy ingredients and were soft with just the right about of chewiness.

We packaged the leftovers into a container and put them into the fridge (I’m not sure if they do or don’t have to be refrigerated afterward). They were fantastic the next morning and even a few days later.