Chocolate Cake Batter Bars
Puffed rice, cocoa, honey, and peanut butter pressed into a pan. Pocket food that tastes like unbaked cake.
- calories
- 195
- weight
- 1.7 oz
- cal / oz
- 115
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 6, 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
- Dessert
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Bikepacking
- Car camping
- Vegetarian
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Puffed brown rice cereal | 1 cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Old-fashioned oats | 1/4 cup | ground fine in a blender or spice grinder |
| Unsweetened cocoa powder | 1/4 cup | |
| Chocolate sprinkles or cocoa pearls | 6 tbsp | 4 tbsp mixed in, 2 tbsp for the top |
| Honey | 5 tbsp | raw if you have it |
| Natural peanut butter | 3 tbsp | chunky is fine; sunflower seed butter works |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp | |
| Fine sea salt | 1/4 tsp | skip if the nut butter is already salted |
Method
- Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and leave a few inches hanging over both long sides.
- Stir the honey, peanut butter, vanilla, and salt together in a bowl until it is one smooth mass.
- In a second bowl, combine the puffed rice, ground oats, cocoa, and 4 tbsp of the sprinkles.
- Add the dry to the wet and stir until no dry cocoa is left. It will be stiff. Keep going.
- Scrape it into the pan, scatter the last 2 tbsp of sprinkles over the top, fold the overhanging wrap across, and press down hard with your palms or a flat-bottomed glass.
- Chill two hours, then lift the slab out by the wrap and cut six bars.
This is home-kitchen assembly, not trail cooking. Nothing gets heated, but the pressing and the chill are what turn a bowl of crumbs into a bar you can carry, so do them properly. Honey and nut butter are the entire binding system: honey is sticky enough to glue puffed rice together, and the fat in the nut butter keeps the slab from setting up as hard as a brick.
The ground oats matter more than they look. Whole rolled oats stay separate and the bar falls apart in your pocket; ground fine, they act as flour and fill the gaps between the puffed rice. The original keeps these in the refrigerator, which is no help on trail. Press harder than feels necessary, cut them small, and wrap each one so a soft bar in August is still one bar and not a smear.
Packing
Wrap each bar in parchment or its own small bag, then pack them all in one flat container so they do not deform. They ride fine at room temperature for about a week; in hot weather keep them low in the pack and out of the sun.
Variations
- Sunflower seed butter in place of the peanut butter keeps it out of the nut category.
- Add 2 tbsp of powdered milk or protein powder to the dry mix and an extra tablespoon of honey to keep it bound.
- Instant espresso powder, 1 tsp, sharpens the cocoa.
https://trailcooking.com/snacks/chocolate-cake-batter-energy-bars