I was talking with another Mom recently and she was telling me of her troubles in finding any type of granola bar for her son who is very allergic to all nuts and some other things.

I told her give me a list of all he is allergic to and I would create a granola bar for him without any of those ingredients.

The big obstacle for parents of children with nut allergies is that so many products are manufactured in facilities that also manufacture nut products. Cross contamination can happen at any point and one may think a product is safe because there are no nuts in the ingredients.

For example, professionally I use Guittard chocolate for my chocolate mousse recipe, which is simply chocolate, cream, egg yolks and sugar. Yet if anyone tells me they have a nut allergy I cannot let them eat it as Guittard manufactures nut products on the same equipment they manufacture their chocolate.

So with my list of allergens in hand I decided I was going to use Quaker Old Fashioned Oats.

I called their 800 customer service number to double check that they were not manufactured on equipment that processes nuts. Luckily they are not. I I had thought about using Bob’s Red Mill Oats, but it clearly states on the packaging that it is manufactured on equipment that processes nuts.

I was going to use a variety of dried fruits and golden flax seed as well. I had a bag of flax seed at home already, so I bought the dried fruits, read all the labels and went home ready to try my experiment. I make a granola that has orange juice in it so I decided to use that as well to help bind everything. I also prefer a chewy granola bar to a hard and crunchy one, and thought that children would prefer that too. I remembered a dried fruit no bake cookie recipe I did as a 4-H demonstration (4-H is similar to Girl Scouts) when I was twelve and based my method on that.

I stared my mise en place and realized my flax seeds were Bob’s Red Mill and they too had a warning on the bag. Oh disappointment! The flax were going to add a little crunch and I find them to have a nutty flavor when toasted. Sitting right next to it on the counter though was a box of Cheerios.

Ah ha, I’ll add them for a little bit of crunch. Next I called the General Mills headquarters in Minnesota and double checked that the Cheerios were not manufactured on equipment with nuts. They were very accurate and had me give them every number on the box, UPC code, batch number, expiration date and the tiny little numbers under the ingredient list to double check. Thumbs up no nut processing in the plant that manufactured these Cheerios.

Success, a moist chewy granola bar with no nuts and no added sugar.

Enjoy!

Avec Amour, Victoria and Alexander

 

No Nuts Granola Fruit Bars

Yield – 24 Bars

1 1/2 Cups Quaker Old Fashioned Oats

1/2 Cup Cheerios Cereal

1/2 Cup Dark Raisins

1 Cup Dried Dates

1/2 Cup Dried Figs

1/4 Cup Orange Juice

1/2 Cup Dried Sweetened Flake Coconut 

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees, spread oats on a half sheet pan covered with a silpat or parchment paper,

toast oats in oven for about 7 minutes, let cool for 5 minutes then pulse in a food processor several times until you only have a few large oats left, set aside.

2. Rehydrate raisins by putting them in a microwave proof bowl, covering with water and microwaving them for 2 minutes, strain,

put half in a food processor, (I have a mini prep which doesn’t hold much so I had to do this in small steps.)

set aside other half. Pulse raisins several times, add Cheerios and pulse several times until you get small pieces like sand,

remove from food processor and set aside.

3. Rehydrate dates by repeating above process,

reserve 2 – 3 dates, put rest into food processor with orange juice and chop until smooth consistency,

remove and set aside.

4. Rehydrate figs by repeating above process again, reserve half figs, place other half in food processor and chop until a paste forms,

remove and set aside, add remaining half of the figs and the remaining whole dates, pulse several times until you have small chunks.

5. Add all ingredients that were set aside and the coconut to a mixing bowl of a stand mixer,

mix together with the paddle attachment until combined.

6. Line an 11″ x 7″ baking pan with parchment paper,

spread mixture evenly over bottom,

refrigerate for 1 hour, remove from pan

and cut into 24 2″ x 2″ squares.

Store in refrigerator.