I’ve had a couple of queries about Giada’s Granola Bars from the Dig in for a Cause episode of Giada at Home. It seems that the Food Network left this recipe off their website. Here it is:
Giada’s Peanut Butter Granola Bars (with a proviso*)
vegetable cooking spray
1 egg white
½ cup chunky peanut butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
2 cups old fashioned oats
¼ cup slivered almonds
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350° F. Line 9 by 13 baking pan with parchment paper. Spray with vegetable cooking spray.
Beat egg white until slightly foamy. Stir in peanut butter.
Place brown sugar, honey and butter in small saucepan. Stir over low heat until melted.
Stir oats and almonds into peanut butter mixture. Stir in melted butter mixture until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips and pour into prepared pan. Smooth mixture down.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly, then cut into bars, while still warm.
* I really wanted you to think that I called Giada and she gave me the recipe, but I’m too honest. So how did I get this unpublished recipe? I slow-mo’ed the tape and read it off Giada’s Blackberry. The only problem was that I could only see the list of ingredients and the baking temperature. But I watched her boy Brian put it together and this is what it looked like he did. The time is approximate, but I think it’ll be fine.
Note:
After reading some of the comments, it doesn't seem as if this recipe works that well. Here's a very similar one from Martha, but there is a misprint (which I'm sure would blow her mind, if she knew). Step Two should read: Pour over OAT mixture; stir until moistened.
13 comments:
HaHa . . . what a way to pass on a recipe - a text to Blackberry to TV to slow motion Sue to blog ~ and then right into my recipe file. Love it. But still treasure my Mom's little wooden recipe file box with her handwritten index cards. The most used ones have spatterings of cake batter etc. on them. Thanks for this one Sue!
How clever! The recipe looks great. I wondered why they didn’t include it with the rest of them. I saw a re-run of this show but didn’t notice any serious man-boobage going on with Brian.
DC,
Yeah, that is funny. I just used a recipe from my mother's recipe box. Hers was metal and many of the recipes were TYPED (on a typewriter, remember those?)
Hey SR,
I guess the FN wanted to annoy people. You're must be nicer than I am, because I definitely saw some cleaving coming through Brian's v neck t-shirt.
That was incredibly clever of you.
Maybe it's not "her" recipe and she couldn't get permission to reprint it?
Rach,
Anything for my readers!
Tom,
OMG! Maybe I stole a recipe then! That's why I NEVER post someone else's recipe without express permission. I'd provide a link, but never the actual recipe. Oh no! Copy it down fast, in case, they're after me.
Seriously, I DO NOT ever post someone else's recipe from a cookbook or other place, but I figured, since this was actually SHOWN on her show, (although I had to do a little work to see it) it would be okay.
I did the same thing - paused the screen and wrote down as much of the recipe as I could. My first attempt didn't turn out . I thought that if I posted what I did, others might be able to tweak the recipe to make it work a bit better.
The flavor is good. It's the perfect amount of peanut butter - Not too much, not too little. The problem I did have is that the bars don't hold together. The bars (if they held together, that is) are somewhat thin, and fall apart as soon as I cut them. I might trying refrigerating them to see if that helps.
It's a soft peanut butter-chocolate granola. (Possibly tasty over ice cream, I think.)
Here's what I did: I prepared a 9x13 glass dish with parchment and cooking spray, and preheated the oven to 350F. I melted the butter, sugar, and honey over low heat; took it off the heat and then stirred in the peanut butter (essentially creating a peanut butter sauce, of sorts). While it cooled, I mixed, in a separate bowl, the oats, nuts, and mini chocolate chips, then stirred in the lightly beaten egg white.
Added the melted butter mixture, stirred everything to combine, and spread it out in the pan. Baked it at 350F 20 minutes.
Next time, I might use a whole egg instead of an egg white - my bars need more glue. (Watch the guy who bakes them in that episode; he dumps in a whole egg.) I might use an 8x8 pan, with the same cooking times (20 min) or maybe I'll use the 9x13 again, but double the cooking time to 30-40 minutes. I'll dial back the chocolate a bit; maybe sprinkle them on top when the come out of the oven. They'll still melt, but I think I'd prefer a thin chocolate layer on top the bar, rather than a blended peanut butter chocolate flavor.
I checked a few other recipes for granola bars; I found some in the America's Test Kitchen baking book. Their recipes are about double in size (i.e. twice the amount of oats); use a half-sheet pan, and call for a cooking time of 40 minutes. They make a crunchy granola bar. I was hoping these would be thicker and somewhat chewy, rather than crisp and crunchy. I'll keep searching for a chewy peanut butter granola bar recipe.
Sarah,
You're awesome to have done all that! Your method makes more sense, but I looked at the order of ingredients in the recipe to figure out the method.
I also thought he added the entire egg, but I looked at it more closely and I think he separated the egg in his hand and then just threw the yolk away.
Several other granola bar recipes I looked at weren't baked. Stuff was toasted and melted and then mixed together, but not baked, and of course there was no egg. Do you think that mixture would have held together without the egg white? They could saved us so much trouble, if they had just posted the recipe!
Sue,
Thanks for all your hard "detective" work. I too, wanted that recipe and tried to find it on the FoodNetwork site. I gave up until today when I googled "Giada's granola bars" and this came up. I'm hoping like Sarah, that they'll be more chewy and will try her suggestions:a whole egg and 8X8 pan.
Hi Lorie,
Yes, those sound like good ideas for the recipe. Look at the note I added at the end of the post about Martha's recipe.
Thank you! I've been searching everywhere for this recipe because of that show.
Thank you so much for posting this. I've been looking all over the food network site after seeing the show and finally just googled it.
Hi Lexie,
Welcome!
You're welcome for the recipe, but based on people's comments, I'm not sure how good it is. I might try Martha's recipe that I mentioned in the post.
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