Homemade Protein Bars

So I love Powerbars Protein Plus bars. They run about 300 calories each or so, and they come in lots of yummy flavors (I'm partial to PB chocolate!). However, they are INCREDIBLY sweet, and when I have one with a glass of milk for breakfast it really makes me crave sweets the rest of the day. So they kind of set me up for a struggle of a day.

Additionally, protein bars are filled with so much junk that while they may fill me up with protein, they just aren't filling me with anything else worthy of a good diet.

I have been doing some searching around online for some homemade protein bar recipes that would fill me with more natural ingredients. I found a few I thought I'd like to try and today I made my first one, but I certainly tweaked it a bit.

The recipe I went off of is here. How I made them is posted below.

They just came out of the oven and I took a little taste and they are VERY good and don't have that fake sweet aftertaste. The texture is right up my alley, firm and chewy, not mushy. I started doing some calorie information for what I made. And I was panicking at first with the numbers I was seeing for what I put in, but then once divided by the serving size, they weren't

that bad. They come in at 341.2 calories a piece. So 40 some odd more than the brand name bars, but they taste SO much better. And I do think I can make some tweaks in the next batch to take the calories down a bit.

Stephany's Homemade Energy Bars

Preheat oven to 325

Line 2 cookie sheets

In a big bowl, mix the following:

2 egg whites

3.5 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup water

1 packet (1.5 cups) non-fat powdered milk

1 banana mashed

1/3 cup chopped dried cherries (totally optional)

1 tsp. vanilla

3 scoops of GNC Protein Plus Protein Powder (whey) - any flavor, but I used chocolate

Use a 1/2 scoop measure to begin the forming process. Form each 1/2 cup measure in to a bar form and flatten it out a bit. Mine made 9 bars. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes.

Again, they are dense and firm and come out to be 341 calories a piece. The recipe I was basing my inspiration off of used corn syrup and juice and a full cup of dried fruit. That seemed like a lot of excess calories and things I didn't want to use, so I used the PB instead. The PB came to mind because it's sticky like corn syrup, adds more protein, great flavor and was used in another recipe I read online.

I do like the combo of the chocolate powder and peanut butter and banana, it's very dessert like without being sweet. The recipe linked above used 2 scoops of the powder, I went for 3 to add in some more chocolate flavor and protein. The powder I used is 130 calories a scoop so you have an idea of what I based mine off of.

And not all of my bars came out the same size, so some are prob. a little more in calories, some a little less.

Lessons for next time: I think I'll probably do less PB and maybe some agave with it and cut down on a coop of protein powder. I wonder how that will change the caloric information.

Overall, this coupled with a glass of skim milk is going to be a great and filling, protein filled breakfast without all of the added processed crap!