Almond Cranberry Trail Bars
Baked at home, cut into slabs, carried until they run out. Dense, sweet, and no chewing contest.
- calories
- 300
- weight
- 2 oz
- cal / oz
- 150
- protein
- 6 g
- serves
- 12, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 20 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Snack
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Thru-hike
- Vegetarian
- Eat in the bag
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Almond meal | 2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Old-fashioned rolled oats | 1 cup | |
| Shredded coconut | 1/2 cup | |
| Wheat germ | 1/2 cup | |
| Raw sunflower seeds | 1/4 cup | |
| Dried cranberries | 1/4 cup | |
| Unsalted butter | 1 stick | coconut oil works and keeps better in heat |
| Brown sugar | 1 cup, packed | |
| Honey | 1/2 cup | |
| Kosher salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Vanilla extract | 2 tbsp |
Method
- This is home-kitchen work. Nothing here happens at camp.
- Spread the almond meal, oats, coconut, wheat germ, and sunflower seeds on a rimmed sheet pan. Put it in a 300°F oven for about 5 minutes, until the surface goes gold. Stir and set it aside.
- While that toasts, melt the butter, brown sugar, honey, and salt in a small pan over medium-low heat. Give it 20 minutes. Do not rush it hot; the sugar will scorch.
- Off the heat, stir in the vanilla.
- Dump the toasted dry mix into a big bowl, add the cranberries, then pour the syrup over and stir until everything is coated.
- Grease a baking dish and press the mixture in hard. Packing pressure is what holds the bar together later.
- Score the portions while it is still warm and a knife still goes through cleanly. An 8x8 gives thick bars, a 9x13 gives thinner and firmer ones.
- Cool completely in the pan before you lift anything out. They set as they cool, not before.
- At camp, unwrap and eat.
These are held together by cooked sugar, not by binding or refrigeration, which is the whole reason they travel. The butter, brown sugar, and honey are simmered long enough to thicken into a syrup that hardens as it cools, so the bar goes into your pack already set and stays set. Skip the 20 minutes on the stove and you get a crumbly mess in the bottom of a bag.
Toasting the dry mix first is not optional. Raw almond meal and wheat germ both carry oil that turns stale fast, and a few minutes of dry heat buys shelf life along with flavor. Press the mixture into the pan harder than feels reasonable, score it warm, and cool it fully in the dish. Cut cold and it shatters.
Packing
Wrap each bar in parchment, then the whole batch in a freezer bag. Unwrapped bars weld themselves into one brick in a warm pack. In hot weather the coconut-oil version holds its shape better than the butter version.
Variations
- Swap coconut oil for the butter and agave for the honey to make them vegan.
- Trade the cranberries for chopped dried apricot or tart cherries.
- Cut the brown sugar to 3/4 cup if you want them less candy and more cereal.
https://trailcooking.com/snacks/almond-meal-and-cranberry-bars