Ryan told me he wanted me to make Lara Bars since his coach Chuckie V had recommended them to him. They are quite pricey and I like making my own food anyways. So I found this link and tried out the recipe and would like to share my experience of making it easier with you. I would follow the directions exactly until...you get to the end.
For those not familiar with larabars, they are arguably the least processed "bars" on the market. By unprocessed, they contain only nuts and fruits - and that's it! Sounds like the perfect thing to try and make at home...
I actually didn't like the method of making one bar at a time with plastic wrap, being the impatient person that I am, I made a huge brick and sliced it into bars and then wrapped it up.
One tip to make sure the fruit paste does not stick to your fingers as you mash the nuts in is that you grease your hands lightly with olive oil or some kind of oil. This will make everything much easier.
Recipe Very Cherry Lara Bar adapted from Camilla
(makes 6 big bars or 10 tiny ones)
Ingredients:
1 cup of pitted roughly chopped dates
1 cup of dried cranberries
1 & 1/3 cup of raw almonds
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
oil for your hands
Equipment:
1) Food Processor
2) Big Mixing Bowl
3) Measuring instrumentation
4) Plastic Wrap
Directions:
1) Process the dates and cranberries until it forms a ball, your food proc essor will make a weird noise
2) Remove fruit paste from food processor and place in mixing bowl. Do not clean food processor
3) Pulse almonds until it looks chopped (a few steps before it turns into almond meal)
4) Oil your hands. Knead the nuts and cinnamon powder into the fruit paste until the nuts are incorporated.
5) Shape into a brick and then slice and wrap.
6) Enjoy.
*Camilla deserves all the credit for the above recipe also she has many other variations and I am going to try*
It was super tasty.
Ryan's review: As highly recommended as the primal bars, especially for athletes. Go get 'em!
7 comments:
Cool! I'll definitely give this a try. Any thoughts on a substitute for the dates? They're awfully high in sugar, one of the reasons I don't eat many larabars. Would something like dried blueberries work, you think?
Eric- Ryan says he prefers less fruit, so I will be making substitutions because I like making different variations. I will be trying fruit other than dates, since we figured these bars turned out a bit sweet. I'm thinking dried apricots and cranberries with almonds. What do you think?
Dried blueberries are certainly another option. Angie requested these, but I couldnt find them at henry's when I picked up everything. If I find some, we'll post it. If YOU find them, let us know!
Yeah, I was definitely thinking berries, as they tend to pack a big antioxidant punch for the price you pay in sugar consumption. I buy unsweetened dried blueberries (and cherries) at Whole Foods pretty regularly.
What I'd *really* like to find is unsweetened dried strawberries. I think those would work great in a larabar, but they only seem to come freeze-dried.
I made them last night and they where awesome :) I passed them out at the ride this morning to get some feed back! I acutally cut a bit on the amount of dates and replaced about a 1/2 cup with dried cherries and blueberries. So good. So easy! thanks for sharing!
Where's the cherries in this recipe?
These are great - even my toddler loves them! We actually added *more* fruit to get a stickier consistency (molar-less toddler friendly)
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