Granola Bars with Fruit

Granola Bars with Fruit

I am repeating the basic recipe that I got from Girli's Groovy Granola Bars.  These bars are perfect for taking to work.

See my first attempt here, and my 'egg-free' version here.

By the way, that egg-free version one was a mistake, sorry if Google sent you to it because you were looking for an egg-free granola bar.  Although I must say, those bars did stick together, for 80% of the time.  And if you want an egg-free granola bar, I say go for it.  Besides: in my opinion, the version with the egg doesn't hold together all that much better than the non-egg version.  There are always going to be crumbs.

This time I remembered the egg.  I am also adding some dried fruit -- the first fruits, really, from my new Excalibur drying unit. 

Ingredients:

• 2 c Rolled Oats 201 g
• 3/4 c whole wheat flour 109 g
• 3/4 c brown sugar, 122 g packed
• 1/2 c wheat germ 52 g
• 1/4 c flaxseed meal 28 g
• 1 tsp seasalkt 5 g
• pinch nutmeg
• 1/2 c coconut oil 110 g
• 1/4 c honey 83 g
• 1 egg lightly beaten 51 g
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 4 g
• 2 c goodies: (Girli suggests hazelnuts, pepitas, sesame seeds, coconut, poppy seeds)

• I used 1/4 cup each of:
• coconut 24 g
• sesame seeds 68 g
• pepitas 29 g
• flax seeds 70 g
• sunflower seeds 33 g
• pine nuts 30 g
• and 1/2 c almonds 72 g

• and then I added 5 g each of the following dried fruits:
• papaya
• mango
• apricot
• nectarine

Method:

Add dry ingredients and mix.

Add wet ingredients and mix.

Use your hands.

Press down in oiled and papered and oiled again 9x13 pan.  Bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Let sit 5 minutes and then cut.

Put them in the freezer to harden up and take them out as you need them.

Notes to Myself

• The mango doesn't add anything more than a bit of texture: it is not the most flavourful of the dried fruit.  The other fruits provide a strange kind of tang to the sweetness of the grain.
• I wonder about taste buds: does a specific taste trigger the body to send a different enzyme to break down the food being eaten?  That would make sense, but I've never seen it written about.  If it is the case, then instead of arguing how many different tastes there are (sweet, salty, bitter and umami), one could simply count the enzymes secreted by the mouth and then the GI tract, and then try to name the tastes that trigger the various responses.  I suspect that the actuality is more complex than that, however: it involves signals received, processed, interpreted, and responded to.
• The pine nuts are very expensive.
• My wife suggests I use 2 eggs
• I wonder if this would hold together better if I used chunks of almonds, instead of whole almonds?