Princess Kaitlyn's Kitchen: Honey Granola for Cookie Pipea

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Princess Kaitlyn who lived in a beautiful castle by an enchanted forest, a magical lake, and a fantastically fun playground. One day while Princess Kaitlyn sat on the castle porch watching the sunrise, a bear from the enchanted forest approached her. He saw that she was snuggled up to her favorite blanket - yellow blanket, which was soft and fuzzy with bumps on one side and silky and smooth on the other side. Princess Kaitlyn looked so comfortable with her yellow blanket that the bear tried to take it from her. Princess Kaitlyn immediately told the bear that this was one item she would not share! However, since she didn't want the bear to be unhappy, she asked the bear to wait a few minutes. Long story short... Princess Kaitlyn along with her mommy and grandma made the bear a brown and white soft and fuzz, smooth and silky blanket of his own. Princess Kaitlyn presented the blanket to the bear and he was forever grateful. The two of them watched the morning sunrise together snuggled in their blankets.

This bear's name was Cookie Pipea (Kaitlyn made this up). Since Cookie and Princess Kaitlyn are now friends, Princess Kaitlyn decided to make Cookie some honey granola bars since bears love honey.
Here's the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/granola-bars-recipe/index.html

Princess Kaitlyn chose dried cherries from Traverse City, dried blueberries and raisins for her fruit. She also used a combination of light and dark honey (we ran low on light honey).


Princess Kaitlyn combined and stirred the oats, nuts, seeds and wheat germ together.


Princess Kaitlyn prepared the oat mixture for toasting for ~15 minutes.

Princess Kaitlyn combined the honey, dark brown sugar, butter and vanilla for the granola bars.

After toasting the oats and mommy melting the sugar/honey mixture, Princess Kaitlyn mixed everything together. It was so sticky!!!

Princess Kaitlyn and mommy pushed the granola into a 9x9 baking pan to bake it together for 25 minutes.
Princess Kaitlyn checked out the finished product. We had to let it cool completely before cutting as it would have crumbled.

Princess Kaitlyn took Cookie Pipea some honey granola bars in the enchanted forest shortly after our kitchen adventures. She loves visiting Cookie's home in the forest since he lives in a cave under a grassy hill covered with a colorful array of wildflowers and her favorite - sunflowers.

So, how did the granola bars taste...not bad. They were very woodsy and earthy. I think we need more dried fruit and maybe some tart fruits to offset the woodsy flavor created by the wheat germ, nuts/seeds and dark brown sugar/dark honey. In addition, next time I would use only light honey and consider switching to light brown sugar. Although this mixture in a non-bar form would be a great addition to some yogurt for breakfast or a snack.

However, mommy really enjoyed the process of making granola bars and likes how a square in our pan is about 90 calories (cut 25 squares out of 9x9 pan; if I cut 16 squares, they'd be 130 calories per square). I'm also tempted to try my hand at regular granola for use as cereal or in yogurts as a snack.

Enjoy Cookie Pipea!