Trail Mix Bars

This recipe comes from a good friend of mine that is a wonderful baker.  She gave me the recipe a few weeks ago and I made it for my "birthday cake" since I'm not much of a craver of sweets nor did I want the extra calories of my usual birthday blueberry pie.  I mostly take a square of this heavenly stuff to snack on during the day at work in lieu of the usual cup of nuts or dried fruit.  It makes a lot of individual bars so it's great for households with lots of kids or if you like to stock up.  It's also great crumbled into a bowl of plain yogurt for your breakfast in the morning!

 

Serves: who knows - lots!  I still have over half in the fridge and have eaten it every day since mid-January and now it's mid-February!

Ingredients:

  - 1 2lb jar of Creamy Peanut Butter

  - 1 1lb jar of Natural Honey

  - 1 cup Rolled Oats - not the quick cook kind (I like the gluten-free)

  - 6oz. Cacao Nibs (the chopped up hulls of cacao)

  - 8 oz. 75% or higher Chocolate Chunks

  - 6 oz. Dried Papaya (usually comes in strips and needs to be diced)

  - 6 oz. Dried Sour Cherries (can chop them if you would like)

  - 8 oz. Pistachios

  - 8 oz. Sunflower Seeds

  - 6 oz. Dried Cranberries

  - 6 oz. White Raisins

  - 8 oz. Sliced Almonds

  - (obviously you can substitute whatever nuts you desire for the ones listed here)

  First, line a baking sheet with wax paper and turn the oven on to 300 degrees.
  Mixing all the ingredients takes a very large mixing bowl, I ended up using my very large stock pot because my mixing bowl wasn't large enough.  Mix all the dry ingredients together first and then add the wet ingredients - dig in with your hands (the only way to do this is to get messy and enjoy licking your fingers afterward!).  Mix everything until it is of even consistency with no big clumps of peanut butter.  Dump the entire mixture onto the wax paper and smooth out.  Place in the oven for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and place in the fridge - let it cool completely, about 2 hours.  Remove from the fridge and overturn the sheet pan onto a flat surface and peel away the wax paper.  Using a large knife slice the bars into the desired size and place in ziploc bags or wrap in syran wrap.  Enjoy!