Cinnamon Granola Chocolate Bars Recipe | Chocolate & Zucchini (2024)

FAQs

What is the best binder for granola bars? ›

Honey. Sweetens the granola bars and helps bind the dry ingredients together.

Honey or maple syrup

These natural sweeteners also help bind the bars together, and make these bars deliciously sweet (though not too sweet).

The sweet and woody taste of cinnamon elevates the flavor profile of milk chocolate while providing a little extra depth and flavor. These two flavors are especially delicious paired together in hot chocolate.

While the oats and nuts bake, you can make the sticky glue that holds our bars together. You'll melt butter, honey, and brown sugar in a saucepan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Mix this sticky mixture with the toasted oats and nuts.

Add an egg white.

The whites act as a kind of glue that binds the ingredients together. To ensure that the egg whites coat all the ingredients, I beat them with a whisk until foamy and increased in volume, which makes it much easier to fold into the granola.

This soaking process will help the oats and seeds digest better. After the oat/seed mixture has soaked 8-12 hours, add the rest of the ingredients and combine. Spread the mixture onto silpat lined jelly roll pans – you will need 2. You could butter your pans if you don't have Silpat.

They save well (wrap and freeze them for up to two months), are more affordable than store-bought bars, and don't contain the long list of unpronounceable ingredients. Plus, your kitchen will smell like a bakery while these granola bars bake. Ahhhh.

A few other common ingredients are whole nuts and seeds, grains like oats and crispy cereal (which offer fiber and a granola bar–like texture), cocoa powder or chocolate chips, and liquid sweeteners like maple syrup or honey, which help your bars stick together and taste delicious.

Glycerine's value as a sweetener, preservative, moisture retainer and thickening agent, along with its other attributes, make it a versatile ingredient in food products such as: Dried fruits and vegetables. Soups. Energy bars.

What flavor pairs well with cinnamon? ›

On the savory side, cinnamon pairs well with citrusy flavors like lemon and orange. Try baking a boneless chicken breast or pork chop with a sprinkle of cinnamon, a splash of orange juice, a pinch of thyme leaves and a touch of olive oil. Cinnamon has long been a mainstay spice in Middle Eastern cuisine.

Cinnamon and cloves are two spices that go very well together. They can both be used to flavor meats such as pork, stew, beef stroganoff, or ham. The flavors will complement each other nicely if you want a little bit of spice in your meat dishes without making them don't have an overpowering taste of just Cinnamon!

Honey – Along with the nut butter, it helps all these ingredients stick together! I love its warm amber flavor in this recipe.

Nut butter is a super flavorful fat that serves multiple purposes in granola. It acts as a binding agent—along with additional coconut oil and whatever natural sweetener I've chosen—helping to pull the dry ingredients together into a wet, sticky mass for baking.

I aim to let it hit room temperature, whatever that may be; the real point is to give it ample time to shed excess heat and steam. This should take about 45 minutes; if left out indefinitely, the granola can turn sticky or soft, so do try to put it away as soon after cooling as you can.

You can use some sticky substances such as honey, maple syrup, mashed dates, or brown rice syrup that serve as a natural sticky binder. Fruit purees like mashed bananas, applesauce, or pureed fruits like figs or prunes contain natural sugars and pectin, aiding in binding.

The three most common binders are xanthan gum, guar gum and psyllium husk powder. Each one works in a slightly different way to help create the structure we need to hold baked goods together.

Parchment paper sheets: Parchment paper prevents the granola from sticking to the pan and therefore allows it to break away into big chunks. Save the sheets and use them again and again — store the used sheets in a bag.