Butterfinger Breakfast Bars: Indulgent peanut buttery oatmeal bars with a sweet layer of chocolate and a sprinkling of chopped roasted peanuts are both healthy and delicious!
I recently discovered that breakfast bars were a thing. Whoa, world expanded! My routine falters when warm days arrive and a steamy bowl of oatmeal no longer appeals no matter how much fruit I pile on top. Enter the breakfast bar. Go ahead breakfast bar take a bow.
Close your eyes and bite into one of my copycat Butterfinger breakfast bars. Will you swear you are biting into the real thing? No of course not. Open your eyes, in your hand is a bar made from oats, natural peanut butter, dark chocolate and other healthy ingredients. There is no way on earth that it tastes like an honest to goodness Butterfinger bar. The actual factory made bar has 18 ingredients, including corn syrup, hydrogenated palm kern oil, tertiary butylhydroquinone, and monoglycerides. This recipe has 11 ingredients, 7 of them whole foods and all of them pronounceable.
“Farewell happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells: Hail, horrors, hail.”
-John Milton, Paradise Lost
Little known fact: the inspiration for Paradise Lost came from the time that Milton bit into a Hershey bar and realized that they taste more like wax than chocolate.
Check out my new Aquafaba page! For tips, tricks and to see all of my Aquafabulous recipes.
Butterfingers Breakfast Bar (Vegan)
One bowl breakfast bars that hit all the notes of salty, sweet, crunchy, moist and chocolatey. 30 minutes from now you could be eating one instead of drooling over photos. What are you waiting for?
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1/2 cup peanutbutter (split into (2) 1/4 cups)
- 1 mashed ripe banana
- 1/4 cup soft cooked chickpeas
- 3 tbsp maple syrup (or agave)
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup thick aquafaba (see note at bottom of recipe)
- 1/2 cup chopped roasted salted peanuts
- 1/3 cup cacao nibs
- 1/3 cup chopped dark chocolate or chips
- 1 cup sliced prunes (soaked in fruit juice)
- 1/3 cup fruit juice for soaking prunes (optional)
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Thinly slice and soak your prunes in enough juice to cover. Allow them to soak for but 15 minutes. You can skip soaking your prunes if you want and you will still have a moist and delicious bar. Feel free to substitute raisins or any dried fruit.
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Heat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit .
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In one large bowl place oats, 1/4 cup peanut butter, banana, chickpeas, maple syrup, vanilla extract, drained prunes, and aquafaba. At this point I drink the liquid that I drained off from the prunes, so yummy.
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Take off your jewelry and start massaging the mixture, really getting in there and mashing those chickpeas. When you have a cohesive mass set the bowl aside.
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Line an 8″X 8″ metal pan with parchment. I use a strip that is as wide as the pan and a few inches longer so that I am only really lining 2 sides and the bottom. It makes it easier to lift the baked breakfast whole when it is done baking.
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Scoop 1/2 your batter into the pan and smooth the top. Take that extra 1/4 cup peanut butter and dab it over the surface of your batter. Now place the rest of the batter over the peanut butter layer and smooth the top.
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Pop it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle the chocolate over the top of the bars and bake another 2 minutes until the chocolate is gooey. Remove from the oven and smear the chocolate in a smooth layer with an offset spatula. Sprinkle on the cacao nibs and chopped peanuts and return to the oven for 3 minutes.
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Remove from the oven and allow to cook on a rack. I usually gently press the peanuts and cacao nibs into the chocolate at this point incase some have not adhered.
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Cut when completely cooled.
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LOL! Your quotes for this post made me giggle. Also, the last time I indulged in a Snickers bar it was with much disappointment… all I could taste was salt. Ugh.
Yay, I made you giggle. I also remember that day when cartoons suddenly seemed “fake”. That was a bummer, but I began to love them again when my kids were little.
oh these look so awesomely good! I had a similar experience with a Mounds bar – YUCK. I have a question though is there something I can substitute for the acquafaba?
Thank you! Good question. I would replace it with 1/4 cup apple sauce and 1/4 cup water if I were to try it at home. But that is a guess. Please let me know how it goes.
These sound heavenly :)!
Gee you’re sweet, thanks.
“…bitter as my heart…”
I LOVE that, please, oh please let me somehow use it! Too fabulous to pass up
Use it with my blessing. Lol.
My go-to was 3 Musketeers. I don’t know if they make that candy bar anymore (it’s not available in the country I live in now and probably never was). If I ever come across one in the US I won’t buy it. I know it would taste disgusting. I’m happy to let it remain in my childhood where it belongs. You and I would gather together all the small change we could lay our hands on in the apartment, walk around the block to the Sunnybrook Farms convenience store, slip into the store hoping that the cashier wouldn’t notice our bare feet and pile our careful selection of junk food – as much as we could buy with our bag of pennies, nickels and dimes – on the counter. Those were the days. These butterfinger breakfast bars look amazing.
Thank you, they really do hit the spot. If we had hit the jackpot and had money to burn we would buy a box of stale powdered or cinnamon sugar donuts. I loved them, they sort of made a puff when you took a bite and dissolved in your mouth. Hanaan suggested I write up my recipe for Mint Milanos next week. Those were Rie’s favorite. xox -Hanne
I second that (e)motion! Pease do mint Milanos!
Keep an eye look out for tomorrow’s post.
Winky Face.
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