protein bars

[map200uk]

hey guys,

i was wondering if anyone had any recipes to make nice tasting protein bars, using oatmeal obviously

I dont fancy buying them from shops, damn expensive at £1.29 a bar!

I was also thinking sureley you could make flapjack protein bars

well i dunno

i saw the basic recipe for flapjacks being as:

FLAPJACKS
=========
4oz Margarine
4 level tablespoons golden syrup
3 oz granulated sugar
8 oz rolled oats
1/4 level teaspoon salt

but how can i make them contain a decent amt of protein and still taste nice?:P

Mark

[Andy]

1 cup Natural peanut butter
8 tablespoons honey
1&1/4 cups whey protein powder
1 cup of uncooked oatmeal
Mix the pb and honey in a bowl, microwave on full for 80 secs. Add the rest and mix together (get your hands in man!!) can add raisins/nuts etc to taste. I also put a little honey on top and then sprinkle some granolo on top. Then Smooth into 13x9 tray and leave for 20 mins. Cut into 10 to 12 equal bars and wrap and store in fridge!!


285 Cals
13 Fat
3 Sat
3 Poly
5 Mono
22 Carbs
25 Protein


These taste better than any protien bar i have ever had and they are super cheap to make. If you have any other questions, let me know.

[map200uk]

ahh cheers man

how could i make nice flavours like the companies do i.e. chocolate, choch chip, etc i cant think of anything i could add without wrecking the bars nutritional value

Mark

[ibrewale]

Originally Posted by Andy

1 cup Natural peanut butter
8 tablespoons honey
1&1/4 cups whey protein powder
1 cup of uncooked oatmeal
Mix the pb and honey in a bowl, microwave on full for 80 secs. Add the rest and mix together (get your hands in man!!) can add raisins/nuts etc to taste. I also put a little honey on top and then sprinkle some granolo on top. Then Smooth into 13x9 tray and leave for 20 mins. Cut into 10 to 12 equal bars and wrap and store in fridge!!


285 Cals
13 Fat
3 Sat
3 Poly
5 Mono
22 Carbs
25 Protein


These taste better than any protien bar i have ever had and they are super cheap to make. If you have any other questions, let me know.

This looks like something I just might experiment with. I'm always on the lookout for something new to eat.
I'll post my results for those sitting on the fence with this.

Jerry

[JeffC]

Hey Andy, great recipe! Super easy to make, and the bars taste great! My wife loves 'em, too, so you get two thumbs up fom us!

I've been wondering how I would ever get through my 6-lb. Costco tub of Pro-Rated vanilla protein ... I love the chocolate flavor, but for some reason I can barely choke down the vanilla shakes. Now I have my answer!

One variation I used was wheat germ on top. Nice! Also, I guess you could get different flavors by using different flavors of protein.

[ibrewale]

Originally Posted by JeffC

... I love the chocolate flavor, but for some reason I can barely choke down the vanilla shakes. Now I have my answer!

Off the Bar topic, but on the Vanilla topic:


One thing I have recently done, now that I have 5 lbs of Vanilla, is to make a normal shake with 1 cup skim milk, a few ice cubes, the vanilla, and since I am a coffee lover, add 1 teaspoon of instant coffee...tastes awesome!

Jerry

[Wop]

Originally Posted by Andy

1 cup Natural peanut butter
8 tablespoons honey
1&1/4 cups whey protein powder
1 cup of uncooked oatmeal
Mix the pb and honey in a bowl, microwave on full for 80 secs. Add the rest and mix together (get your hands in man!!) can add raisins/nuts etc to taste. I also put a little honey on top and then sprinkle some granolo on top. Then Smooth into 13x9 tray and leave for 20 mins. Cut into 10 to 12 equal bars and wrap and store in fridge!!


285 Cals
13 Fat
3 Sat
3 Poly
5 Mono
22 Carbs
25 Protein


These taste better than any protien bar i have ever had and they are super cheap to make. If you have any other questions, let me know.

I just made these and they're incredibly good. The only problem I have is that my macronutrient values are somewhat different than yours. I got:

222 Cals
11.5 Fat
1.6 Sat
2.8 Poly
5.5 Mono
20.75 Carbs
12 Protein

This is when divided up into 12 portions. Everything is pretty close, except the protein is awfully low. I'm wondering where I went wrong. Any ideas?

[JeffC]

Originally Posted by Wop

Everything is pretty close, except the protein is awfully low. I'm wondering where I went wrong. Any ideas?

My protein calculation is lower, too. According to my numbers (taken from the packaging):
Protein powder: 22g/quarter-cup x 5 = 110
Peanut butter: 4g/Tb x 16 = 64
Oatmeal: 5g/half-cup x 2 = 10
Total 184 / 12 = 15.3

I might try increasing the ingredients by 50% for the next batch ... hopefully the thicker bars will still hold together.

[SCHTEEVIE]

I have heard issues with eating uncooked oatmeal and it not being absorbed as well as cooked - anyone know about this?

[StevieD]

Originally Posted by SCHTEEVIE

I have heard issues with eating uncooked oatmeal and it not being absorbed as well as cooked - anyone know about this?

I don't know about that specifically. If it has anything to do with the "whole" oats being too hard to digest, perhaps grinding the oatmeal in a food processor before adding it to the rest would help.

I do this with the protein bars that I make, and have had good luck with them.

[SCHTEEVIE]

I tried this recipe last night...

they didn't hold together and crumbled when I tried to cut them.
so I broke it all up with my hands and added 3 table spoons of olive oil, and 2 more table spoons of honey, mixed it again and let it set again.

it worked better that time, although the bars still seem "delicate".

[Wop]

They held together pretty well for me. I put them in the fridge for about 20 minutes after I smoothed them in the pan. This seemed to harden them up nicely. I also store them in the fridge.

I would prefer that the carbs and fat were lower though, and protein higher. The honey provides way too many carbs, and the PB brings a ton of fat to the equation. I'm having trouble coming up with any substitute ingredients that will provide similar consistency and stickiness though.

[Adam_S]

I made this with organic maple syrup since I was out of honey and a milk and egg protein powder (since I didn't have whey protein), and I made a half batch since I was low on PB, here are my numbers in calories:

1/2 cup peanut butter 720.0
1/4 cup maple syrup 210.0
1/2 cup and 2 TBSP protein powder 250.0
1/2 cup oatmeal 150.0
Half Batch total 1,330.0
6 servings, 1 serving total: 221.7

Macronutrient breakdown for 1 serving:
221.7 calories
10.7 g fat
2g sat fat
17.8 g carbs
2.7 g fiber
10.3 g sugar
17.8 g protein

I would prefer that the carbs and fat were lower though, and protein higher

I've been thinking on that myself and I'm going to try to see if I can get something better. I'm going to try to cut the fat somewhat by trying almond or hazelnut butter. I'm not so worried about the carbs, the oats are about a fourth and are good low gi carbs, and the honey is about 50% of the carbs and are nice hi GI carbs, hopefully this means that it will be a satisfying meal replacement by providing energy both quickly and over time. The maple syrup would alleviate some of the honey carbs, which is the idea of replacing it, it'd drop about 16 grams of carbs to replace half the honey or around 64 calories total 9which equals about 5 calories less per serving, big whoop .

We'll see what happens..

they didn't hold together and crumbled when I tried to cut them.

After I get to the store I'm going to experiment with a new batch and hope to fix the crumbliness problem as well . I would think that it's too much powdery dry materials, don't go to a complete full measure on the oatmeal, a little below the top, and drop say two tablespoons of the the protein powder if it's too powdery. Or you could add more honey...

This is a pretty similar recipe to my mom's peanut butter balls candy (think of replacing the protein powder with powdered sugar, ricep crispies for the oats, and dropping the honey), so here are my planned alterations for a full batch (I"ve not made this but plan to):

1/2-3/4 cup Peanut butter
1/4-1/2 cup almond butter (I'll decide on the fly when I can compare consistencys if it will be 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 cup of this)
2-4 Tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons maple syrup
0-2 Tablespoons butter (I'll have to run the comparison numbers, butter would help the recipe consistency a great deal, but it is calorieful, moreso than honey.)
1 and 1/4 cups whey protein
1 cup rolled oats (possibly food processed...)


Also heat the peanut butter, almond butter, honey, syrup, butter in a saucepan on low heat until it 'melts' basically this will make these ingredients much more workable because the temperature will be more consistent. If you do this, stir constantly to prevent scorching, once the consistency is uniform and has melted to a nice liquid consistency (this is where the butter helps in cutting the consistency of the PB--though a combination of the different sweetening agents and the almond butter may alleviate the need for the butter).
Remove from heat, fold in the protein powder until mixture is uniform, then fold in oats and other 'toppings' such as nuts, raisens, or chocolate .

spread into an 11x7 (pyrex) baking dish and allow to cool at room temperature. once cooled add additional toppings, cut and wrap (if fridge space is limited) and then refrigerate.

A 9x13 baking dish would make the bars too thin in my opinion, this pan resulted in bars that were about 3/4 to an inch thick and took up half the 11x7 pan, a full recipe should spread out nicely into a thick bar that will hopefully hold together better.

Another variation I may eventually try will be all almond butter and butter, without the PB adding as much fat this may work out better, and you could still add unsalted peanuts to the mix... Hmm a lot of interesting possibilities in this recipe...

After I make this I'll be sure to post my results and final recipe.

Adam

[SCHTEEVIE]

I am looking forward to hearing how that turns out!

[Adam_S]

I ended up not getting the almond butter, or other nut butters because they're all higher calorie and higher fat grams than an equal serving of peanut butter. That and almond butter is eight dollar a bottle. I'll try out a variation as soon as my all the whey protein arrives :P

Adam

[NCNBilly]

You might try baking the finished product for 15 minutes or so at 350, that might help them set better. You'd probably get a nice separation of the peanut butter/honey mix on the bottom.

You might try drizzling a mix of skim milk, cocoa powder, and splenda on the top (about equal parts of each)...

[gr1fter]

I made these and I must say...



these were very good. Thanks

[rboit]

Originally Posted by NCNBilly

You might try baking the finished product for 15 minutes or so at 350, that might help them set better.

That might denature the whey protein enough that it loses it's biological effectiveness. I know that this is the case with GNC's whey products - I asked them about this myself a couple of days ago.

[Adam_S]

I made a new batch, this time with a tablespoon of butter added and half the amount of honey replaced by maplesyrup. Also I"m using whey isolate now, instead of milk and egg protein powder. This batch seemed more crumbly than the last batch, I think it's because of hte powder. still I like these enough that I"ll make them again, and try some other variations and see what happens. Perhaps adding a teaspoon or two of vanilla would help (as well as add a nice flavor). another possibility would be to try to incorporate a tablespoon or two of rum into the peanut butter/honey mixture all melted together. mmm that's certainly an idea, I wonder how that would work! :P

I also heated and mixed the peanut butter in a saucepan and it seemed to work quite well, don't take too long though, or you'll evaporate out precious liquid! It's possible you could thin the mixture (before you add the powder and oats) with some water, so long as you get it well incorporated first. I found out the hard experimental way that adding water after it's mixed makes it have nice gummy lumps throughout!

Adam

[SCHTEEVIE]

I wouldn't use water since the oil in the PB is the majority of the "fluid"; and I can't say I agree with the rum idea. Maple Syrup sounds like an interesting addition though.

My idea to make it less "crumbly" was to use more honey and a couple table spoons of olive oil.
that about did it as far as making it more stable after it set.
(I had used non flavored whey isolate powder as the protein source)

I would still like to tweak this recipe further to try and make the "finished bars" more solid, so they aren't delicate and tend to break if you try to take them in a zip lock bag "to go".