It doesn’t matter if it’s a three-course meal on the grill, a simple barbecue, or an impromptu picnic, summer outdoor eating lends a magical feeling to food. Even unwrapping and eating a popsicle, trying to keep up with its melting, is such a treat.

And because I like to get out and go, energy bars are always a convenient and oh-so-portable option for heading off to the park or making longer treks by plane or car. When I’m hungry and busy, and there is no other food in sight, an energy bar eaten on a park bench in the sunshine exceeds haute cuisine.

I’ve written recipes for energy bars in past posts, including my rendition of homemade LARA bars, but the other day I decided to tackle another of my favorite ready-made bars, Clif bars. I like them a lot, and so does my husband, but the $1.69-per-bar cost is a bit much considering how much we like to have them around.

Clif bars are chewy and soft, similar to an under-baked oatmeal cookie. Looking at the ingredients list on the wrapping, brown rice syrup and oats are two of the main ingredients in all the bars. Also on the list are some scary scientific additives that I’d rather do without, along with a weird soy aftertaste. So rather than add any soy protein powders or the like, I decided to keep the ingredients simple and readily available (as well as pronounceable).

I tried a baked option first, combining several recipes into one and swapping out a number of the ingredients for high protein nuts and some whole grain. I was thinking I could under-bake the bars slightly to get the chewiness (it didn’t include any eggs). The results were tolerable, but extremely dense–arguably an edible enima. Thankfully, Nick thinks they are delicious, so all is not lost.

Two things prompted the success of my second batch. First, I had eaten some of the raw cookie dough. It was delicious, far more so than the finished prodict, and much closer to the flavor of Clif bars. Second, my mother phoned to ask for a recommendation from my No-Bake Cookie Cookbook (all of the recipes are cooked in minutes on the stove as opposed to baked in the oven). This got me thinking about no-bake cookies in general. It was shortly thereafter that I had my lightbulb moment: Clif bars may be cooked, but I was pretty sure they were not baked.

So I went back to the drawing board and, using some of my no-bake cookie recipes as reference, concocted a no-bake Clif bar. Yum! While not exactly the same, it is pretty darn close. Plus it’s far less expensive–and no yucky aftertaste. Enjoy.

















