Ken's Granola Bars

Ahh, the swhoosh, swish of skates on ice, the crack of the stick against the puck, the pass, the tip, he shots he scores!!! The spectators go crazy!! What a game, what an event, what a granola bar!!! Whoa, back up here, weren't we just talking about hockey? A little. Recently, like back in January, we at Camp Evergreen hosted our Second Annual 3-on-3 Pond Hockey Tournament. It was a roaring success. Especially the granola bars. From a kitchen perspective, events are a success when people like the food. And the granola bars were well received.

“Granola Bars ROCK!!” and “Granola bars rocked” [Kerry has to enter the dialogue here to apologize for the fact that we didn't take even one picture of the granola bars. Ooooops. I'll include a picture of Dave being a human zamboni instead. But if we had a picture of the granola bars, you'd be saying ...] It just makes you want to run to the kitchen and make a batch. Ok, team, lets do it!!

Camp Evergreen's Secret Recipe Granola Bar
Ingredients

• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup corn syrup
• 1 cup mini marshmallows
• 1 tsp real vanilla
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 4 cups vector cereal
• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 cup graham graham crumbs
• ¼ cup sesame seeds
• ½ cup raisins
• ½ dried cranberries
• 1 cup butterscotch chips/chocolate chips

Method

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix all of your dry ingredients together.
2. In a double bottomed sauce pan, bring the butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup to a roiling boil. Remove from the heat as soon as it hits this stage. Add in the marshmallows and the vanilla. Mix until all of the marshmallows are melted in.
3. Pour hot syrup mixture over the dry ingredients and mix well. Everything needs to be well coated.
4. Press into a well greased 9x13 pan. Cool and cut to the size that you like.

At this stage in the game, you can either let them set and enjoy or you can bake them in the oven at 325C, until they just start to brown around the edges for about 12 minutes. They will be a little more chewey, but the should hold up better and not be crumbly. I did this with the last batch that I had made. They are more chewey, but when stored in an airtight container, they seem to retain some moistness.

Another trick to develop more flavour if you have time and patience would be to toast your oats, coconut and sesame seeds together on a cookie sheet in the oven at 325C for about 15 minutes, making sure to stir the mixture every five minutes or so to ensure that the outside edges do not burn. This will help to develop a more nutty like flavour.

I had told a participant at the Pond Hockey Tournament when he had asked for the recipe, that it was a secret recipe, so secret that it was even a secret from myself. Haha, now here it is in print, so not much of a secret. And to be honest with you, these kind of “secrets” are best when they are shared.

Ken the Cook