Baking your own trail bars

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PayetteRucker

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Aug 4, 2009
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Has anyone tried baking their own granola/trail bars? Seems like a much cheaper option in the long run than buying cliff bars at 1.39 a pop. Tips, tricks, recipes, flavors, storage for packing, etc? I spent an hour mulling around the bulk foods section of the grocery store and came home with maybe 10 dollars in ingredients to try some brown maple sugar and raisin, cranberry apple walnut, coconut/orange/pineapple and white chocolate macadamia nut cranberry batches and was wondering if anyone else had ideas for additives for vitamins/minerals/calories etc.
 
I'm curious to see also. I get my cliff bars at walmart in a six pack at less than a dollar each. The quaker oats-Oatmeal-to-go bars are another great off the shelf product.
 
This is my first post on this forum. I usually hang out on the HI board.

Have you considered pemmican? Keeps forever and some recipes can be quite tasty. Others can make a boiled hillbilly sock look mighty tasty. It's even more inexpensive if you can use game meat from your freezer.

Just a thought

Roger
 
Thanks Rodger, actually tried my first pemmican this weekend, picked up a nice lean roast and some lard at the meat counter and had some fun with the roomate's processor. Saw a recipe in his cookbook and had to try it. Definitely going to become a regular deal for winter outdoors stuff. Codger, I googled it, hence how I was able to buy a bunch of stuff in the bulk foods section. What I was wondering if there's anything specific I can throw into the mix to add caloric and nutritional content that would be beneficial, or if anybody had any favorites/
 
Fat. Anyone who has spent much time at all outdoors can tell you that increasing fat in the diet helps provide fast, needed calories for warmth and energy. Dairy fats are my personal favorites (pure butter and cheeses), but peanut butter is another example as are fat meats like jowl and bacon. I've made pemmican before and while it isn't much of an appetizing munchie cold, it makes a killer soup base. IMHO, diet/low fat trail bars are like no-alcohol beer. With pemmican though, you have to consume it quickly in warm weather as the animal fats go rancid pretty quickly. Not a big problem in the winter months. Jerked meat, in order to keep, needs to be fat free. You can add the fats back for use in pemmican, just beware of trying to keep it long in warmer weather.
 
Cliff bars work fine for me. I personally don't see any reason to reinvent the wheel.

It might be good to know how to make your own, just in case a comet hits the world and destroys civilization, but then most of the ingredients would be gone as well. :D
 
Mannlicher said:
Cliff bars work fine for me. I personally don't see any reason to reinvent the wheel.

It might be good to know how to make your own, just in case a comet hits the world and destroys civilization, but then most of the ingredients would be gone as well. :D
Click to expand...
Reasons I can think of doing your own:
Cheaper
You can tailor it to your own tastes.
You can leave out all the preservatives and chemicals.
It's a fun project.

I'm interested in seeing your results.
 
I bake my own bars regularly. I like to replace half of the flour with protein powder. The added protein stays with you for a while. When you find a recipe you like, treat it as a base and add raisins, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips or whatever you like. Mix it up!

Here is the recipe I like (yes, I googled it)--

Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat germ
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup all-purpose flour (I do half flour/ protein powder)
3/4 cup raisins (optional)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, raisins and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, oil and vanilla. Mix well using your hands. Pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm. Do not allow the bars to cool completely before cutting, or they will be too hard to cut.
 
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My wife bought some of those "KIND" bars . They are good and look really easy to make , thought about making some myself only a little more hearty .
 
One of my favorite easy recipes:

-16oz jar of natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts, salt)
-16oz honey
-4 1/3 cups oatmeal

Combine the peanut butter with the honey in a saucepan and heat over low heat just until runny. Turn the heat off and thoroughly stir in the oats. Dump the whole mixture into a 9x9" pan and let cool in the freezer. Cut the massive bar into pieces. ~122cal/oz; yield = 45oz; total cost: $6.60. I just made a batch of these for my upcoming 7-day trip, they taste fantastic.



I also make "bars" by filling muffin tins with seasoned dehydrated venison and then filling them in with tallow. The resultant pucks of meat/fat taste pretty good to me and pack well, but most of my hiking companions have likened them to "beefy candles". My girlfriend refuses to eat them. To each their own, though. I'm not a fan of cooking meals when out on the trail, and if I can save weight be leaving fuel/stove/pots at home then I do.
 
I've been making my own protein bars for a while now. Protein powder, crushed almonds, honey, peanut butter and porridge oats. Doesn't require any cooking just some heating up of the peanut butter and honey then mix it all together and set it in a fridge overnight.

Cheap and filling.
 
I notice that most people make bars with very high calorie count... Now did anyone try to make the bars with low calorie and more on the healthy side.. I always try to make my own food but on the low side of the calorie with as much vitamines and minenirals as i can. I never had a problem with lack of energy. Just something that is more filling.

Sasha
 
Neat idea. :thumbup:

Curious about how long one can reasonably expect homemade bars to keep and the best way to pack 'em. Ziplock bags? Vacuum seal?
 
I use plastic ziploc bags and store everything in a chest freezer. If I think that I might want to store bars for long term, I would vacuum seal them, but they are so easy to make that I don't find the need to make them in such quantity that I would have them around for many months.

sasha said:
I notice that most people make bars with very high calorie count...
Click to expand...

When carrying a week's worth of food on my back, I try to make every item as calorie-dense as possible in order to take up as little volume/weight as I can from food. Foods with low caloric density are counterproductive for backpacking.
 
Here's my recipe:

4c rolled oats
1.5c granola (or just use 5.5 cups oats, but commercial granola improves the texture)
.5c crushed banana chips
1/2c flax seed
1/3c dehydrated milk
4 packets gelatin
1c peanut butter
2/3c honey
2/3c water
2T coco powder


Mix the oats, granola, banana chips, flax seed, dehydrated milk in a large bowl. Mix the water, gelatin, peanut butter, honey, and coco powder in a sauce pan and heat (don't boil) while stirring until everything dissolves together. Quickly pour it over the mixed dry ingredients and mix it well. It is REALLY sticky, so a spoon will only get you so far. Wet your hands and mix it by hand. Form them into bars on a baking sheet and bake for ~30min at ~200ºf.

- Chris
 
Another reason for not buying premade is food allergies.

I have a major tree-nut allergy, and it has been impossible to find anything on the present market which is nut free or isn't made on same equipment as nut containing products.

Will keep looking...
 
I was told sesame seeds are some of the most calorie dense foods in existance, something crazy like 2400 calories a pound? If so, I'd think that would make a great additive.
 
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