Math Is Hard (plus some Granola Bars)

I've been on a baking kick lately, and Peanut Butter Fingers' recipes are calling to me, so I decided to try her homemade granola bar recipe.

The awesome thing about her recipe is that it's easily tailored to your own tastes - it doesn't matter which fruit or which nut you use, just that it's one you like! You can click the link above to see her recipe.

I made a few (almost disastrous) tweaks, only because I didn't have enough almond butter to begin with. I had about 3/4 of a 1/2 cup. After taking an embarrassingly long time trying to figure that one out (I thought I was good at math?), I decided that meant I had about 1/3 cup of almond butter. Well... that's almost right, but it's not really. The math, if any of you are interested, is: (.5)(.75)= 0.375 cups, which is slightly more than 1/3 cups. Close enough, right? Well, maybe.

Then, I only had one measuring cup that had 1/3 cups, so I was improvising using the 1/4 cup (or 4 tablespoons) and then adding 1 tablespoon, and 1 teaspoon (or .3333 tablespoons) to equal the 5.3333 tablespoons that equal 1/3 cups.. honestly too much math was going on for how many ingredients I had (which was a lot). So, here's my recipe:

No-Bake Granola Bars 

(Makes sixteen small granola bars)

Ingredients

• 0.375 cup Justin's Almond Butter
• 1/3 cup honey 
• 3/4 cup old fashioned oatmeal 
• 1/3 cup Bob's Red Mill Ground Flaxseed Meal
• 1/3 cup Bob's Red Mill Shredded Coconut (Unsweetened)
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/3 cup Sunmaid Raisins 

Directions (direct from pbfingers.com)

1. Microwave nut butter and honey until warm, approximately 30 seconds. Stir together.
2. Stir oatmeal into the nut butter and honey. 
3. Add coconut, dried fruit and chopped nuts. (This is what took me the longest, as the mixture was almost too sticky)
4. Stir in the ground flaxseed. (Yikes so much stuff)
5. Press the mixture into a pan sprayed with cooking spray and freeze for 45 minutes (or overnight). Cut into bars and enjoy. Store remaining bars in the refrigerator.

As I commented, I ended up freezing them overnight, which I'm not really sure was the best decision, as they were just super cold the next morning. The above picture shows 6, but there are two more long bars to make 8, and I cut each of those in half to make 16.

Calories for whole mixture: 1,931 calories, cut into 16 rectangles - about 120 calories each.

I took them out of the freezer the next morning and transferred them to the fridge. I ate one a few hours later - and even then it was a little too mushy! So I put the whole bag back in the freezer for safe keeping. I don't want these babies to fall apart. Boy, were they tasty though!!

What will you make?