Cake Batter & Crumbs: "Create Your Own Flavor" Chewy Granola Bars

At work we just finished up moving offices to a new building across campus. I've been so tired from the packing and unpacking that I've lost the energy to bake this week. Instead I have a recipe that I made a couple weeks ago and never got around to posting.

This recipe came from allrecipes.com for Easy Granola Bars. I chose this one not only because it received high reviews, but it also appeared to be a good base recipe that you could easily customize the "mix-ins".

For mine, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips, macadamia nuts, coconut, and a handful of dried blueberries. Also, I only had about 1 1/2 cups of the quick cooking oats in the house, so I used that and also 1 1/2 cups of the old-fashioned oats-- and they turned out fine.

These were great and are an excellent portable snack or yummy breakfast. It'll be fun to experiment with flavor combinations. I'm thinking some with cinnamon, dried apples, pecans, and a touch of maple syrup might be really good in the Fall.

Here's the recipe as it was listed with my adjustments:

Easy Chewy Granola Bars

INGREDIENTS

3 cups quick-cooking oats [I used half each quick cooking and old fashioned]
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup sliced almonds [I used macadamia nuts]
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries [I used a little less than 1/2 cup dried blueberries]

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the oats, sweetened condensed milk, butter, coconut, almonds, chocolate chips and cranberries with your hands until well blended. Press flat into the prepared pan.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, depending on how crunchy you want them. Lightly browned just around the edges will give you moist, chewy bars. Let cool for 5 minutes, cut into squares then let cool completely before serving.