Recipe Tutorial: Quick No-Bake Granola Bars

The first few weeks of school have come and gone for my little minions. Well they’re not so little anymore. At almost 14 and almost 12, they’re I guess, pint-sized minions.

Anywho. My kids always beg for an after school snack, so I decided to get a little inventive with the items I already had in the kitchen.

You’ll need: Oatmeal, rice crispies, brown sugar, honey, peanut butter and assorted fillings. I added dry roasted peanuts, granola, peanut butter chips and marshmallows. You can add pretty much anything you want. The sky is the limit!

Add your honey, brown sugar and peanut butter in a saucepan and combine.

It doesn’t look appealing, but trust me. Turn your stove on medium/low and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Bring it to a boil and continue boiling for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Get all of your non-melty ingredients together.

Grease a 9x13 pan and set aside.

Add the liquid to the dry and stir. Let it cool just a tad.

Add the marshmallows.

Peanut butter chips.

Add some mini chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Transfer to a pan and using your hands or a spatula, smooth the mixture out.

Sprinkle with chocolate chips and let cool as long as you can.

They’re so fantastic smelling that it might be kinda hard to keep your fingers out.

Cut them into bar shapes when you just can’t handle waiting any longer and enjoy!!

 

Easy No-Bake Granola Bars

*Note* You can tweak this recipe any way you like. I rarely ever measure anything but the oats for this, so you don’t have to either. Just go with what you think tastes good.

2/3 c Peanut Butter

1/4 c Honey

1/2 c Brown Sugar

3 c Oatmeal

Fillings and Add Ons:

1 c. Rice Crispies

1 c Dry Roasted Peanuts

1/2 c Granola

1 c marshmallows

1/2 c Peanut Butter Chips

1/2 c Mini Chocolate Chips

 

In a large bowl, combine oatmeal, rice crispies, granola and roasted peanuts. Set aside.

Combine peanut butter, brown sugar and honey in saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat until boiling, stirring occasionally. Once it reaches a boil, time for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Pour honey mixture over dry ingredients and stir to combine. Let cool slightly.

Add marshmallows, peanut butter and chocolate chips. Stir.

Press into greased 9x13 inch pan, let cool. Slice into bars and enjoy!

Recipe Corner: Baklava

My favorite time of year is just after fall hits… When it’s still warm enough outside to get out and do yard work in your capris and shirt sleeves but not warm enough to heat up the inside when you bake, creating an inferno-like situation. As soon as this happens I whip out a piece of paper and begin my fall/winter baking lists.

Right at the top of the lists is Baklava. I got this recipe a few years ago from my Scentsy lead and I’ve been making it ever since. It’s addictive… You think about it at weird times during the summer when it’s incredibly too hot to have the oven on for 55 minutes and stand at a stove for 20… You dream about it… You salivate like Homer does when he talks about donuts.

So I will show you how to make my heavenly baklava. It’s easier than you think, so don’t be daunted. Embrace that which is baklava. It will change your life forever. As always, recipe will be after the tutorial!

For the Baklava you’ll need a 9x13 inch pan. Grease it up good with cooking spray. You’ll also need a roll of fillo dough and a moist tea towel to keep it moist. This is very important. If you don’t keep the dough moist, it will crack and tear and just be a bear to work with. I also have over there a bowl with a silicone brush, some real butter and a knife. And what’s not pictured… Pecans and cinnamon. Oh and you’ll need the recipe… And your cellphone if you just can’t seem to be separated from the stupid thing (like me).

Finely chop or kinda ground your nuts. You can use walnuts, but I use pecans because I don’t care for walnuts anymore. Add your cinnamon, stir it around til the pecans are coated.

Add one (two sheet) layer of fillo dough, slather it with melted butter. Repeat until you have like eight sheets layered with butter in between.

Sprinkle your pecans on. Top with two sheets of buttered fillo dough and continue with one of the pecans, two more of the fillo, until you have all the pecans gone. Finish up with a layer around 6-8 layers thick.

Like this. Cover the top with melted butter.

Here’s the tricky part. Using a sharp knife, cut the baklava into squares. Cause believe me. It’ll be too hot right out of the oven, then too sticky after you put the syrup on. This way it’s already cut and all that yummy syrup can seep into the cracks. If you want to be fancy and cut your stuff into squares, you can go right ahead and do that. But I’m not fancy, and this stuff is a PAIN in the butt to work with. Trust me. LOL

Now you put the baklava in the oven and wait and wait and wait and wait. You may die waiting. And your house will smell FABULOUS!!! Like you want to bottle it up and get high off it fabulous.

While you’re salivating over the smell of the baklava cooking, you can get your syrup going. You’ll need a heavy saucepan, honey, vanilla, white sugar, and water.

Combine all that and simmer for 20 minutes.

Get your baklava out after the 50 minutes has elapsed and it’s golden brown and beautiful. Revel in its loveliness.

Then CAREFULLY and SLOWLY pour the super hot syrup over the baklava. You’ll have to do it in stages… And be careful not to float the tops off the baklava. Or if you do… You can just eat them…

Then you wait until it cools slightly. I usually wait until I think the fear of incinerating my tongue has passed. This year it wasn’t to be. I ended up burning the crapholies out of my tastebuds, but man it was so worth it! Tasted soooo good.

So here’s the recipe:

Breazy’s Best Baklava

1 pound ground nuts (pecans, walnuts, etc)

1 tbsp cinnamon

2 sticks (or three) melted butter

1 pkg fillo dough, thawed and brought to room temp

Syrup

1 c Water

1 c white sugar

1/2 c honey

1/2 tsp vanilla

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray bottom and sides of a 9x13 pan.

Grind nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll fillo dough. Cover fillo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have eight sheets of layered dough. Sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. Continue until all the nuts are gone. Top layer should be about 6-8 layers thick.

Using a sharp knife, cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. Bake for about 50 minutes until the baklava is golden and crisp.

Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Freezes well. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it’s wrapped up.

 

Now I haven’t frozen it yet. I’ve been tempted. But I don’t know whether it should be before it’s baked or after it’s baked? I’m just so scared of ruining some lol. It just costs soooooo much to buy a pound of pecans.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family and I do. If you make it and use a different kind of nuts, like hazelnuts or cashews, let me know!

Copycat Recipe: Auntie Anne’s Pretzels

Every time I go to Wichita and go to the mall (which isn’t often), I always have to stop at Auntie Anne’s for a soft pretzel. It’s always the same. Sour cream and chive with cream cheese to dip it in. I have been in love with these pretzels FOREVER, and I’ve wanted to make them for just as long.

But… My dear mother and I have a mutual yeast phobia. Every time either of us has used yeast, it’s gone horribly, horribly wrong.

We’re working on conquering our phobia and we’re making baby steps getting closer and closer to bread mastery.

I had been looking through one of our copycat recipe books and I stumbled across this one… And lemme tell you… Ehrmergerd!!! Soooooo flipping good. So I’m going to share my experience (and the recipe at the end of the pictorial) with all my darling Witchie-Poos!

Supplies you’ll need: A stand mixer. Now you can do this by hand, but having to mix and knead the dough for 10 minutes is going to wear you out quicker than anything. You’ll also need brown sugar, dry active yeast, salt, butter, sugar, milk and flour. I used bread flour, but you could use all-purpose flour as well.

You need to warm your milk up to close to 110 degrees F. Any hotter and it would kill the yeast, any colder and the yeast won’t activate correctly.

Pour the milk and add your yeast in your mixing bowl. Let it sit and activate for at least 3 minutes. You’ll know it’s doin’ it’s thing when it looks like this… Nice and foamy and smells like you broke a beer in the bottle.

Start adding the flour, one cup at a time.

Mix and knead for 10 minutes.

Look! It’s dough!

And by the end of the 10 minutes, your dough hook will look like a dough tornado.

Put it in a big greased glass bowl and cover with a sheet of greased plastic wrap. Sit it back on the back burner of your stove while it’s pre-heating so it can rise. It’ll take about an hour for it to double in size.

Look! It’s a big, giant yeast monster!

It’s all spongy and yummy smelling.

And it doesn’t bounce back real quick. For some reason I thought it had to bounce back quickly… But it didn’t..

Then you punch it down! Such a nice, hollow, satisfying sound.

Then you start cutting it into pieces… Which honestly… Didn’t really work out well… I cut a whole bunch of wedges and it didn’t even come out in the wedge shape… So we just started pulling it out.

Get your warm water and baking soda ready so when you’re done with your pretzel, you can dip it in and put it on the pan. This will ensure that your pretzels have a really nice crisp outside.

Start rolling out your ropes. You want to make them long and skinny. Which I didn’t do. But it doesn’t effect the taste, just the aesthetics.

Roll some more.

Dip in the soda water bath.

Put it on the pan! This is also the time you’d want to put salt on them. But these didn’t have any salt.

Plus you can make cute little pretzel thingies.

Check it out! Pretzels!!! Now you put these in the oven and wait unpatiently. While you’re waiting, you need to melt your butter so you can dip them in when they’re done.

Golden yummy goodness right out of the oven.

SOooooooo gorgeous.

Then you dip it in butter!

And that just makes them sexy.

Then you get the hubby to make the rest so you could take pictures!

And then you get a little butthurt when he makes them better than you…

And then we sprinkled salt on these babies. We used sea salt.

And then you hear the angels singing on high when you’re done and you have a plate full of golden goodness.

Serve with your favorite accoutrements. Mine of course, cream cheese and the ubiquitous pairing… Nacho cheese!!!

And enjoy!!!

The Recipe:

Auntie Anne’s Copycat Pretzels:

2 c. milk

1 1/2 tablespoons (two packets) active dry yeast.

6 tbsp brown sugar

4 tbsp butter, melted

4 cups flour (I used bread flour, but you can use all-purpose flour)

2 tsp table salt

1/3 c baking soda

3 c. warm water

Coarse salt

8 tbsp butter, melted in a pie plate

Warm the milk in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes or until the temperature reads 110 degrees on a thermometer. Pour into mixing bowl.

Stir in the yeast and let sit for about 3 minutes for the yeast to activate.

Add butter and brown sugar.

Add the flour about 1 cup at a time and add the salt. Kneed for about 10 minutes with a stand mixer, or by hand.

Put into a greased bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap. Let rise for one hour in a warm, draft free spot until it’s doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Punch down the dough and divide as you’d like.

Roll out each section as long as you can and twist into a pretzel shape.

Dip each pretzel into the warm soda water and placed on a greased baking sheet. Add coarse salt if you wish.

Cook for 7-11 minutes or until browned.

Dip each into the melted butter when done.

Serve with your favorite dipping sauce and enjoy!!!