I’ve been trying to make a basic oats and honey granola bar for years. It’s been an on again off again experiment that has created pages full of notes. Some versions were too sticky, some too brittle, flax seed made it taste really weird health effects be damned. But my number one struggle with a good granola bar was getting a solid bar that didn’t fuse itself to the pan. There seemed to be a magic moment when they had cooled a little, but not too much, and could be cut and removed from a pan, at which point they usually needed to be remolded into a bar shape. I have seen other people use greased parchment paper to ease this process, but I’m just not a buy-to-dispose-of parchment paper fan. And still, there remained a small, mysterious, window of time in which to cut the bars. After giving up the fight for about a year and a half I tried, in a pinch, making bars in silicone muffin cups. Success. Turns out silicone is the answer. And individually sized silicone is the best answer. So just get over your expectations and embrace the disc shaped granola bar.

Thanks to the silicone, this recipe seems to be quite forgiving. I was just pouring random amounts in the first couple times, and the result was consistently good. My original intention was to make a Nature Valley Oats & Honey Granola Bar rip off. My final result is not quite as dry as theirs. Really it’s more like caramel coated oatmeal. But I want you to understand these are supposed to be old school granola bars, not protein bars. There don’t have dried fruit or nuts in them, just carbs, sweet carbs. That said, a scoop of peanut butter would be a great addition (Nature Valley makes those too don’t they?) and could probably replace some of the oil.