Baking Day Honey Oat Bars
One pan of honey-sweetened oat bars, cut and bagged for the week's trail snacks.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 2.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 128
- protein
- 6 g
- serves
- 12, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 15 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
- Breakfast
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Eat in the bag
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Rolled oats | 3 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Whole wheat flour | 1 cup | toasted in a dry pan first if you want less raw flour taste |
| Honey | 3/4 cup | |
| Vegetable oil | 1/2 cup | or melted coconut oil |
| Powdered milk | 1/2 cup | |
| Dried blueberries | 3/4 cup | |
| Cinnamon | 2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- This is a home-kitchen bake. Heat the oven to 325F and line a 9x13 pan with parchment.
- Stir the oats, flour, powdered milk, cinnamon, and salt together in a bowl.
- Warm the honey and oil together until they pour easily, then pour over the dry mix and stir until every oat is coated. Fold in the blueberries.
- Press the mixture into the pan hard. Loose bars crumble into gravel in your pack.
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges brown. Cool completely in the pan before cutting or it will fall apart.
- Cut into 12 bars and let them sit out an hour to dry further before bagging.
The source was a family baking day: bread, cinnamon rolls, muffins, all of it meant to be eaten within the week at a kitchen table. Only one thing from that list travels, so this takes the honey-sweetened whole grain idea and turns it into something that survives four days in a pack. No eggs, no butter, no leavening. Oil and honey are the whole binder.
Honey is what makes it keep. It holds moisture without going wet, and it does not go rancid the way a butter-based bar does. Pressing the mix down firmly matters more than the bake time: an under-pressed pan comes out as granola, which is fine but not something you can eat one-handed on a switchback.
Packing
Wrap each bar in parchment, then two or three to a bag. They keep about ten days in warm weather and longer in cold. In heat, the honey softens and they stick together, so parchment is not optional.
Variations
- Swap the blueberries for raisins, chopped dates, or dried cranberries.
- Add 1/2 cup peanut butter to the honey and oil for more calories and protein. That makes them no longer nut-free.
- Leave out the powdered milk and use another 1/4 cup flour for a dairy-free bar.
https://www.cheapskatecook.com/budget-friendly-meal-prep-baking-day