14 oz sweetened condensed milk
2 1/3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup raw almonds
3/4 cup uncrystallized candied ginger
3/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
Directions:
Preheat oven to 250. Oil one 11×7 baking dish OR one 8×8 dish and one standard loaf pan. In a saucepan, heat the condensed milk. Add all of the dry ingredients and stir to thoroughly mix and evenly distribute all ingredients. Pour the mixture into the prepare pan(s) and flatten with a spatula or the back of a spoon. Bake for about 65-70 minutes or until the mixture looks dry and is only slightly sticky to the touch, but not browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in the pan. Use a spatula to remove the entire contents of the pan to a cutting board and then cut into bars. Store in an air tight container.
Yield: approximately 15 small bars
My thoughts:
Breakfast bars seem to be big business these days. I honestly am not a breakfast person (bar or not) but I like the idea of having something solid and homemade to tuck in my bag as I go about my day. I had debated making straight up granola bars but couldn’t find a recipe I liked. Everything called for lots of butter, sugar, honey or corn syrup and just seemed too sweet, sticky and possibly oily. Not to mention unnecessarily complicated. Then I saw mentions of homemade milk and cereal bars that used sweetened condensed milk (mixed with honey, sugar etc) and commercial cereals (like Cherrios). I didn’t quite see the need to add extra ingredients and we don’t eat boxed cereal so I went for a simpler approach. And you know what? It totally worked. Strangely, using sweetened condensed milk not kept the bars intact, and lent the bars a slightly caramel flavor, but the resulting bars were not overly sweet. They also had a richness to them (and a vanilla flavor) that belied the simplicity of the ingredients. And if you make them over the weekend, they will last all week.
They’re that easy to make? I’m sooo trying these. Thanks!
I’m not a candied ginger fan…what would be a tasty replacement? Love granola-type bars!
That is a really good idea to use condensed milk. So yummy.
as I said on your flickr account, these bars look so wholesome and delicious!!
They look yummy and so quick and easy.
They are so easy! And JEP- I would think any dried fruit would work instead of the ginger.
I’ve been on the lookout for something like this – I knew there had to be an alternative to what I had been seeing. And ANYTHING is better with sweetened condensed milk.
Yum, I don’t know what else to say! They have something like this at the supermarket near my house (the hippie type one) and they’re super good.
This looks great. I’m going to make some of these for my next winter camping trip.
that looks tasty! i would love to be able to make that for my breakfast… unfortuneatly i’m not much of a cook!
yummy!
These look so perfect! Now that school has started I need something to get me through that midclass slump! 🙂
I just made these last night. They were so easy and so good – the best granola/breakfast bar I’ve ever had. I substituted chopped pecans for almonds as I had those on hand, and dried cranberries for the ginger, as I didn’t see any at the store. I will definitely make these again and want to try the recipe as written.