Homemade Clif Bars

As mentioned, my plan for this weekend was try try out the homemade Clif Bar recipe from Camilla Saulsbury's personal blog,  Enlightened Cooking.  Wel, I did it and they are excellent!  Camilla's recipe was so easy and so quick that I can't believe I waited this long... oh and on top of that, the bars are super yummy.

Of course, there are a few things I will mention about my version.  Partly because Camilla has left the recipe a little open ended with various options for fruit and nut combination, partly because I couldn't find one of the ingredients and of course, typical me, I picked up one of the wrong items.

Start with Camilla's Recipe for Homemade Clif Bars that can be found here.
I used the following specifications and variations:

Nut Butter:  I used Maranatha Natural Foods Crunchy Almond Butter (No Stir)
Fruit: I used dried cherries that I picked up at our local Fresh Market
Chopped Nuts: I used almonds
Syrup: I look at both Fresh Market and Publix and was unable to locate Brown Rice Syrup.  So I did a little online research and came across a few options.  I decided to go with 1/3 cup of light corn syrup plus 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.  I think it worked.  After I made this substitution, I found the Cook's Thesaurus website that lists a few other options in case you can't find this product either.
Oh and my mistake was that instead of getting ground flax, or flax meal, I actually ended up with flax seeds.  I could have ground them up somehow I think, but I have neither a food processor or a coffee grinder, and was honestly a little lazy about it - so in went the whole flax seeds.

I'm still not sure if the cost of all the ingredients totals an actual save vs. purchasing actual Clif Bars.  I think the cost of the almond butter is what I'm stuck on.  I got an 12 oz container so that will only make three batches and the container cost just under $8.00.  Add in the cost of the dried fruit and the nuts and really, like I said, is it cheaper?  I would have to do the math and break it all down to find out (still pretty sure it is cheaper, the that almond butter was super pricey!).  I imagine that if I used peanut butter (a variation that is listed in the recipe) and peanuts that the cost wouldn't be as significant.  I will more than likely try that in the very near future.  For now, I have 11 little homemade Clif-like snack bars that were fun to make and super tasty.

Also, do check out Camilla's blog as she offer several other recipes for varies types of bars: energy bars, snack bars, power bars etc etc.   I'm looking forward to trying some other varieties as well.  Enjoy!!