Granola Bars

This is based on a "Flapjacks" recipe from Rachel's Food for Living. I've been wanting to make these flapjacks for a while but there's something daunting about using three sticks of butter to make a pan of oat bars especially since Rachel Allen (author) claims that these treats disappear "before they had even cooled!"

Yesterday, being in the mood for indulgence, I decided to plop a heavy-bottomed pan on the stove and just go for it. The first step is to melt the butter with the sugar and syrup to make some kind of caramel. As I watched the butter melt, I chickened-out and quickly fished out one stick of butter from the hot pan. So my recipe only uses 2 sticks of butter. I also used rolled oats instead of the quick-cooking ones because that's all I have in the cupboard. Maple syrup is substituted for golden syrup (what is golden syrup?). What I ended up with are these addictive scrumptious buttery granola bars.

Next time though, I'll further reduce the amount of butter to just 1 1/2 sticks (it was still a little greasy for my taste) and dress it up a little bit with either nuts, seeds, dried fruits, peanut butter, or even chocolate chips!

Homemade Granola Bars

2 sticks of butter (8 oz)
2 T maple syrup
3/4 c brown sugar
1 t vanilla
1/3 c all purpose flour
3 1/4 c oats

Melt the butter with the maple syrup and brown sugar, continuously stirring until smooth. Add the flour and oats. Mix well. Spread mixture into a jelly-roll pan or 9x13 pan (or something around that size) lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into squares/rectangles while it is still warm.

The squares will crisp up when they cool.